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josephhinvest

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#289874 5-Oct-2021 11:24
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I use iCloud messages, on iPhone and Mac.
For reasons, I wish to archive a long history of messages.
Has anyone successfully done this?

There are dodgy looking apps that ask you to sign into them with your Apple ID - no way am I doing that. I guess if someone can personally recommend one I could change my password and use the app and immediately change password again. Don’t like the idea though.

There are also apps that claim to extract messages and other content from a local phone backup. But this presumably won’t have the whole conversation archive.

Often the advice is just to screen shot and keep scrolling but I have literally years of messages I would like to keep, preferably as text, not screenshots.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Joseph


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josephhinvest

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  #2789705 5-Oct-2021 11:29
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The messages thread goes back to 2018 when iCloud messages was introduced, and also has 2500 images. There must be a way to save this all surely.



BoydHQ
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  #2789707 5-Oct-2021 11:31
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I've used https://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/ which has worked pretty well.  Allows you to save full message conversations in a number of formats.


josephhinvest

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  #2789744 5-Oct-2021 12:25
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BoydHQ:

I've used https://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/ which has worked pretty well.  Allows you to save full message conversations in a number of formats.



Thanks for that. I’ll have a close look when I get home. 60USD eh. Well I’ll pay that it if works.



josephhinvest

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  #2789836 5-Oct-2021 13:50
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josephhinvest:
BoydHQ:

I've used https://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/ which has worked pretty well.  Allows you to save full message conversations in a number of formats.



Thanks for that. I’ll have a close look when I get home. 60USD eh. Well I’ll pay that it if works.


Well it doesn't look like it does what I want. No sign of being able to access iCloud messages.

BoydHQ
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  #2789842 5-Oct-2021 14:01
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Works for me.  Maybe its a version thing.


wellygary
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  #2789846 5-Oct-2021 14:16
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It looks like they get cached locally if you access message on a mac, ...

 

 

 

Doesn't seem like its a simple process to pull the data out, but it does all appear to be accessible 

 

https://towardsdatascience.com/heres-how-you-can-access-your-entire-imessage-history-on-your-mac-f8878276c6e9

 

 


josephhinvest

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  #2789850 5-Oct-2021 14:19
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BoydHQ:


Works for me.  Maybe its a version thing.



Yep I'm signed in. I can download my Contacts information correctly, so It seems to be working. But only Contacts and Photos shows.

 
 
 

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josephhinvest

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  #2789853 5-Oct-2021 14:21
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wellygary:

It looks like they get cached locally if you access message on a mac, ...


 


Doesn't seem like its a simple process to pull the data out, but it does all appear to be accessible 


https://towardsdatascience.com/heres-how-you-can-access-your-entire-imessage-history-on-your-mac-f8878276c6e9


 



Yikes. That is probably beyond me unfortunately

josephhinvest

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  #2789860 5-Oct-2021 14:31
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josephhinvest:
BoydHQ:


Works for me.  Maybe its a version thing.



Yep I'm signed in. I can download my Contacts information correctly, so It seems to be working. But only Contacts and Photos shows.


I guess I wasn't clear enough. I'm using "Messages in iCloud" to sync across devices. It looks like this data is not included in any backups so this approach probably would have not worked regardless. Dammit. Will try to get my $87 back. I'm just a bit desperate to get these messages out, I should have been more careful. And now I feel I need to change my iCloud password too.

josephhinvest

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  #2790348 6-Oct-2021 07:27
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Ok so I’ve been through it with very helpful tech support. What I want to do is impossible. The backup extractor will only access messages currently stored on the phone.
Thankfully they have been very reasonable and agreed to refund my purchase.

henrytai
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  #2791491 7-Oct-2021 20:36
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I think this is what you are after - https://www.iphonelife.com/content/how-to-save-text-messages-your-mac

Luckily you have a Mac so it’s much easier.

Do not sign in to any 3rd apps with your Apple ID.

josephhinvest

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  #2791557 8-Oct-2021 06:51
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henrytai: I think this is what you are after - https://www.iphonelife.com/content/how-to-save-text-messages-your-mac

Luckily you have a Mac so it’s much easier.

Do not sign in to any 3rd apps with your Apple ID.


Thanks for this. I have done this going back several months but that PDF is a couple hundred pages. Anything more than that seems to fail to print to PDF.

sudara
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  #2809440 8-Nov-2021 16:35
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I’ve found this to work really well 

 

 

 

https://imazing.com/


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