TextPort vs iMazing: one records your screen, the other reads the database
If you are comparing TextPort with iMazing, the two are not competing at the same thing, and the difference is not the price. TextPort rebuilds a conversation from a recording of your screen, which its own developer states plainly. iMazing reads the message database out of an iPhone backup. That single difference decides what the finished export can be asked to prove, so it is worth settling before either subscription starts.
Where does each program get the messages?
TextPort reads your screen. The developer said so in a reply to an App Store review, and it is the clearest sentence either vendor has written about its own method:
Apple does not allow apps to access messages directly, so transcribing data from your screen is the best we can do
The product page describes the same thing as an instruction rather than a limitation: record your conversation as you scroll, and TextPort produces a paginated, timestamped export. So the input is a video of the Messages app, and the output is text recovered from that video.
iMazing takes the other route. Its messaging data is pulled from an iTunes or iMazing backup, which means it opens the database Apple’s own backup already wrote, and the export is a rendering of stored records rather than of displayed pixels.
Both produce a document at the end. Only one of them ever had the message.
What does that change in the finished document?
Everything a message carries beyond its visible text, because the screen never displayed most of it in the first place.
| What the source can carry | From a screen recording | From the backup database |
|---|---|---|
| The words of each message | yes | yes |
| Sender and direction | yes, as laid out on screen | yes, from the record |
| Timestamp | the ones the app chose to display | the stored time of each message |
| Messages you scrolled past too fast | no | yes |
| Attachments as files | no, only as they appeared | yes, as the files themselves |
| Edited and unsent messages | whatever the app shows today | recorded as edits and deletions |
| Read and delivered receipts | no | yes |
| A conversation nobody has to scroll | no, the scroll is the capture | yes, the whole thread at once |
The column is about the source, not about any one program: what a given export prints from the database is each vendor’s own choice, and the point of the comparison is that the recording never had most of it to begin with.
The row that matters most is the third. Messages displays a timestamp above a group of messages rather than beside every one of them, so a recording captures the times the interface decided to draw. A database read has a time for each message because each message was stored with one.
The second row that matters is the last. A capture that depends on scrolling is a capture whose completeness depends on the hand that scrolled, and a thread of several thousand messages is exactly where that becomes a real problem rather than a theoretical one.
Which one is cheaper, over the time you will actually use it?
Neither sells a licence you keep, and that is the honest headline for both.
| TextPort | iMazing | |
|---|---|---|
| Price, checked 4 Aug 2026 | from 4.99 USD/week to 59.99/year, several tiers at once | 49.99 USD/year, five devices |
| Model | subscription, in app | subscription only, since June 2025 |
| Perpetual option | no | no, discontinued |
| Free version | no published limit | 25 messages, and 25 WhatsApp messages |
| Runs on | iOS, Windows, macOS | Windows, macOS |
iMazing’s position is the vendor’s own sentence, and it is the reason a lot of two year old advice about buying it once is now wrong:
In June 2025, we discontinued the device license and now only offer subscriptions
TextPort’s pricing is stranger and worth naming for what it is. Several price points ran at once when this was checked, from 4.99 USD a week up to 59.99 a year. A vendor running several prices for one product at the same time is testing what people will pay, not publishing a price list, so whatever you are quoted may not be what the next person is quoted.
One more thing about TextPort, because it explains why it appears higher in search results than a new product usually would. The domain has been continuously registered since September 2007, but the export product now sitting on it first appears in web archives in March 2026. An old address, a very new product.
Where does this program stand next to them?
Same input as iMazing, opposite pricing to both, and a much narrower job than either.
ChatExport reads an Apple backup and turns one conversation into a document. It does not manage a phone, move photos or restore anything, and it does not record your screen. What the narrowness pays for is the document:
- Court View, a formal layout chosen at export, with message numbering down the margin so a line can be cited by number, timestamps to the second and raw phone numbers printed beside contact names.
- A SHA256 checksum of the finished file, written beside the export, so anyone can re-check later that the document has not changed since. What that does and does not prove is set out in how to verify a PDF with SHA256 in 30 seconds.
- Encrypted backups read directly, with the password asked for at the backup and never written to disk.
- Five formats: PDF in two styles, plus TXT, HTML, CSV and RSMF. iMazing sells RSMF too, in its Business tier at 275 USD a year and up.
- One payment, 34.99 USD, and no subscription ever.
The trial is free and stops after the 50 most recent messages with every page watermarked, which is a smaller free tier than it sounds and a larger one than iMazing’s twenty five: the whole thread is readable on screen before you pay for anything.
When should you pick each of the three?
Pick TextPort if the conversation is on a phone you can hold and scroll, you have no computer in the picture, and a readable transcript is all you need. It is the only one of the three that runs on the phone itself, and that is a real advantage when there is no PC available.
Pick iMazing if you want a phone manager rather than an exporter. It backs up and restores devices, manages apps, moves photo libraries, handles voicemail and supervises fleets, and it runs on macOS. If you want one program for everything an iPhone needs from a computer, buy it, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
Pick this one if you are on Windows, the job is one conversation, and the document has to answer questions later. That is the narrow case, and it is also the most common reason people go looking for this category at all.
What this comparison cannot settle
Four things, and pretending otherwise would make the rest of the page worth less.
Whether any of these exports is accepted anywhere. That is decided by the court, tribunal or employer reading it, on their own rules. A document that carries stored timestamps and a checksum answers more questions than one that carries neither, and that is the whole of the claim being made here.
Whether TextPort’s recognition is accurate on your conversation. Reading text back out of a video is a recognition problem, and nothing in the sources behind this page measures its error rate. What can be said is what the method is, not how well it performs.
What either program costs you today. Every figure above carries its check date of 4 August 2026, and TextPort was visibly testing prices when it was checked.
Whether iMazing opens a backup this program made, or the reverse. This program scans the two standard Apple backup folders on Windows and nowhere else, so a backup another tool keeps in its own location is not found. The reliable route in either direction is a backup made with Apple’s own software.
Frequently asked questions
Does TextPort need a computer at all?
No, and that is its genuine advantage. It runs on the phone, records the conversation as you scroll, and produces the export from that recording. iMazing and this program both need a computer and a backup, which is a slower start and a different kind of document at the end.
Can iMazing read an encrypted iPhone backup?
Yes. So can this program, and so can Decipher TextMessage and TouchCopy. The one program in this category that does not is AnyTrans, whose own guide tells you to switch encryption off first, which is covered in an AnyTrans alternative that asks for your backup password instead.
Is a screen recording worth less than a database export?
It carries less, which is not the same sentence. A recording holds what the phone displayed: the words, the layout, the timestamps the interface drew. A database export holds what the phone stored, including per message times, receipts, edits and the attachments as files. Which of those matters depends entirely on what you are being asked to show.
Does either of them work with WhatsApp?
Both do, by different roads. iMazing reads WhatsApp out of the phone backup. This program reads WhatsApp’s own export file, which is slower to set up and works from an Android handset as well, because the file is written by WhatsApp rather than by the phone. The full route is in how to export a WhatsApp chat to PDF.
Which is better for a very long conversation?
Not the recording, and this is the clearest practical difference of the three. A capture that depends on scrolling scales with your patience; a database read takes the thread whole, and the export is bounded by the date range you choose rather than by how far you scrolled.
The whole category side by side, including the two other programs that reconstruct conversations from the screen rather than reading the database, is in the best iPhone message export software of 2026. For the pricing question on its own, the iMazing alternative for Windows takes apart what the subscription changed.
Before paying anyone here, open a finished document. The sample exports are this program’s real output over an invented custody dispute, so the Court View layout, the timestamps and the checksum page are all readable without installing a thing.