How to save SMS on PC

SMS are less and less used now, but on your smartphone you have many important messages that you would not want to part with. Your smartphone, however, is starting to “play tantrums” and you will have to change it soon, so you would like to understand how to save the SMS on your PC so as not to lose them in the future. No problem, today I will show you some solutions suitable for the purpose suitable for both Android and iPhone. Find them below.

Index

• How to save SMS to PC from Android
  • MyPhoneExplorer
  • SMS Backup & Restore
• How to save SMS to PC from iPhone
  • Messages on Mac
  • iTunes

How to save SMS to PC from Android

You have had an Android smartphone for a long time and you will probably have to change it soon. You are not very practical with technology, so you are trying to figure out how to save SMS to PC from Android , aren’t you? No problem, below I will show you some solutions that might be right for you.

MyPhoneExplorer

The first solution that I want to illustrate involves the use of the MyPhoneExplorer application , available for download on Android through the Play Store or AppGallery for HUAWEI devices equipped with HMS and on Windows PC (not available for Mac), through the relative site official .

To download the app on your smartphone, just visit the links I gave you a moment ago and press the Install button ; to proceed on the PC, connect to the MyPhoneExplorer site and click on the Windows PC button . Once the download is complete, double-click on the .exe file you just downloaded and install the application following the instructions you see on the screen (a click on the Yes , OK , Accept , Next , Install and Finish buttons should be enough ).

Once installed, open the application on your PC and from the main screen click on the File button in the menu at the top. From the menu that appears, click on the Connect device item (or press the F1 key on the keyboard) and decide how you want to connect your Android smartphone: USB cable , Wi-Fi or Bluetooth .

If you want to use the USB cable, a solution that I recommend, all you have to do is select this option and click the OK button . Now take your Android smartphone and enable the USB debugging function , which is required to do this. To do this, open the Settings app and scroll down until you find the Developer Options item . In this section, scroll through the various items until you find the USB Debugging item : to activate it, set the relative lever to ON and tap the OK button to confirm the operation. More info here .

Now connect your Android smartphone to the PC using a USB cable suitable for the purpose and wait for the connection between the application and the smartphone to take place: if you have never used USB debugging on your smartphone, tap the OK button from the pop-up that appears on the screen to confirm the connection to the PC. During the connection phase, the MyPhoneExplorer Client app will be automatically installed on the smartphone , necessary to connect the smartphone to the PC. Once installed, tap the Allow all app authorization requests button .

To conclude the connection between the two devices, from the PC assign a name to the smartphone (any one) and wait for the synchronization to be successful.

Well, now that the synchronization has been completed, click on the SMS item in the sidebar, through which you can access the list of all the SMS on your smartphone. To save them on your PC, just click on the Extra item in the top menu, select the Create backup item and click on the Save button . A backup screen will open in which you can decide to include, in addition to SMS, also contacts, call log, events and notes: once you have decided what type of backup to perform, click on the Create backup button and wait for the procedure to go to successful. Later you can also restore this backup to your new smartphone.

If, on the other hand, you want to save only certain messages or entire conversations, right-click on them and select the items Import / Export and Export selected messages : then decide where to save the file and also the type of format (eg CSV , XML or HTML ) and click the Save button to complete the process.

SMS Backup & Restore

The second solution that I propose, however, is perfect for those who do not always have access to a PC, but still want to keep their SMS safe. In this case, I recommend that you download the SMS Backup & Restore app, an app that allows you to back up your SMS both locally, perhaps to later transfer it to your PC, and to some cloud storage services .

SMS Backup and Restore is currently available at no cost both on the Play Store and on alternative stores for devices without the Play Store. Once installed, open it and start the setup wizard.

From the home screen, then tap on the Let’s start button and then on the Allow button for the various authorization requests. Once inside the main screen, tap the Set a backup button , decide whether to include only the SMS or even the Call log (to do this, use the lever of each item) and proceed by tapping the Next button at the bottom.

Now you have to decide where you want to store your SMS, you can choose between the items Google Drive , Dropbox , OneDrive and This mobile , the latter relating to saving locally: enable the items you prefer by acting on the lever and proceed by tapping the Next button placed in low.

If you decide to backup to one of the cloud services, the app will automatically open a page dedicated to configuring your account . Proceed by tapping the Login button and from the menu that appears choose the item Full access to all files and folders : select your account from the menu that appears or add it if it is not displayed automatically by choosing the Add account item .

Well, now you have to decide whether or not to set a recurring backup, which the app will automatically perform every day, every week or at a certain time by acting on the relative lever and finish the procedure by tapping the Start backup button at the bottom. In a few seconds the app will back up the SMS and upload the backup to the cloud if you have activated this option.

To save the backup to your PC from one of the cloud storage services is very simple. If, for example, you have used Google Drive , all you have to do is open it also via the website , locate the backup you just created (usually called sms-XXX.xml ) , right-click on it and select the item Download : the file it will be saved on your PC and you can open it with any XML editor .

If, on the other hand, you want to copy the backup saved locally on your smartphone to your PC , all you have to do is connect the smartphone to your PC , locate the SMS Backup & Restore folder and copy its contents into any folder on your PC. Easy, right?

How to save SMS to PC from iPhone

You’ve been using an iPhone for a while now , and you’ll probably need to change it soon. You’re a guy who cares a lot about every single piece of data on it, so you’d also like to be able to save all the SMS. The problem is that you have absolutely no idea how to save SMS to PC from iPhone . No problem, below I will show you how to make a backup of the SMS on your iPhone.

Messages on Mac

The first solution does not provide a real backup, but it is more a way to be able to view the SMS on the iPhone via the Mac. You must know that if you use the same Apple ID on your iPhone and on your Mac you can view and manage your SMS directly through the Messages application on Mac , installed by default.

To activate SMS synchronization on your Mac, open the Settings app on your iPhone, tap on the Messages item and then on SMS Forwarding : in this section, set the lever for your Mac to ON . In this way you can use the application Messages on your Mac to send and receive SMS, just as if you were using your iPhone.

Furthermore, by activating the message synchronization function on iCloud you can keep all your SMS directly on Apple’s cloud storage servers and automatically find them on all your devices. You can activate this function in the Settings menu > [your name]> iCloud> Messages on iPhone and in the preferences of the Messages application on macOS.

iTunes

Another viable solution is the one that involves the use of iTunes , Apple’s historic official software that makes it possible to manage every aspect and create a backup of your iPhone from your PC. If you use a PC with Windows 10 or Windows 11 you can download Apple iTunes from the Microsoft Store . If, on the other hand, you have a PC with Windows 7 or earlier , you will need to download iTunes from the Apple website , as there is no Microsoft Store on these operating systems. Find all the details here .

If you use a Mac , however, you should know that starting from macOS 10.15 Catalina , you can use the Finder directly , since Apple has integrated all the iTunes functions relating to the management of iOS / iPadOS devices into this application. If, on the other hand, you are using an older version of macOS, you will need to use the iTunes application just like on Windows, which you find installed “by default” in the operating system.

Now take your iPhone and connect it to your PC via Lightning cable : once connected, tap the Authorize button from the pop-up that appears on both devices and enter the unlock code of your iPhone.

Once your iPhone is connected to the PC , click on the iPhone icon from the main iTunes menu or from the sidebar in the Finder on Mac. Then click on the Summary item in iTunes or General in the Finder, from where you can view all the information about the iPhone connected to the PC.

From this screen select the item Make automatic backup to this computer or Backup all iPhone data on this Mac depending on the PC you are using, and make sure that the Encrypt local backup or Encrypt local backup is not selected. To start the backup click on the item Back up now or Back up now and wait while the transaction is completed.

Now you finally have a full backup of your iPhone, but you don’t have direct access to the SMS related backup yet, as the backup made via iTunes is encrypted and can only be read via this application. Don’t worry though, as there is a workaround to get around the problem.

The first thing to do is locate the SMS file, which is identified by the following string: 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 . All you have to do is search for it on your PC using the Windows Explorer search engine or the Finder on Mac. Once you have located the file, copy and paste it to your Desktop (Windows) or Desktop (Mac).

Perfect, now go to the iphone-sms.com website , click on the Select the file you just located button and upload the file you just copied: in a few seconds an XML format file will be downloaded that you can open very easily . Inside the file you will find all the SMS present on your iPhone, also divided by chat. Convenient, right?

Clearly, although apparently secure, the site in question is not official from Apple, so I advise you to use it only in case of real need (to avoid any potential privacy problem).