Free tools
Six small things, published because the answers are awkward to find and because nothing about them should be behind a download. Each one runs in your browser: no account, no upload, and nothing that reaches us.
Exhibit list generator
You have a hearing date and a pile of documents, and the court wants a numbered list of them. Fill in one row per exhibit, with its date and where it came from, then print the list or take it away as a CSV. What you type stays in your own browser, including between visits, so a list you started last night is still there tonight.
RSMF viewer
Somebody sent you an .rsmf file, the format eDiscovery platforms take messages in,
and you have no platform to load it into. Drop it on the page and read the conversation,
photos included, with a plain report of what the file says about itself. The commands to unpack
one by hand are on the same page, first.
Apple Core Data timestamp converter
The numbers in sms.db and chat.db count from 2001, not 1970, and
since iOS 11 they count in nanoseconds. Paste one in and get a date, in both directions, with
the SQL to do the same to a whole table.
iPhone backup file name calculator
Files in a local backup are stored under the SHA-1 of their domain and path. Work out the name of any of them, see the four folders it can be sitting in, and read the two traps that produce a digest matching nothing on disk.
Check a document against its checksum
For the person who was sent a PDF and a file ending in .sha256 and has no idea
what to do with the pair. The page teaches the commands Windows and macOS already ship, and
will also do the arithmetic in the browser if you would rather not type one.
The message format itself, documented
What we worked out about Apple's message database and backup layout is public and stays
public: the schema across iOS generations, why the text column is empty on newer
messages, how encrypted backups are keyed, and an honest table of what cannot be recovered at
all. CC BY 4.0, so quoting it needs nothing more than a credit.
If what you are after is the conversation rather than the database, ChatExport is a Windows program that reads a backup already on your PC and writes the thread as a PDF, with the photos, the timestamps and a SHA-256 beside the file. It is paid software and the tools above are not a trial of it: they are complete, and they are free.