Your iPhone has the ability to hold hundreds of messages in it from all the different conversations you may have had throughout months or even years. Some of these messages might be really important and your attorney may need a copy of them to use in court for whatever reason so you want to know how you can export text messages from iPhone to PDF for court. Keep reading and you will learn 3 different methods to help you do that here in this article.
1. Sync your text messages to Mac
One of the first methods you can use to export text messages from iPhone to PDF for court is to have your messages synced to your Mac. This is the easiest method out of the 3 and is fairly quick to do as well. In just a few minutes you will have access to all your messages on your Mac.
- First, open up the Messages app on your Mac and log in to your iCloud account using the Apple ID that you are using on your iPhone.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down the Settings menu until you reach Messages then tap on it to open the settings.
- Tap on Text Message Forwarding and tap on the slider bar to enable the Mac that you signed into in the first step above.
- Now go back to the Messages app on your Mac and click on Messages in the top left near the Apple Logo then tap on Preferences from the drop-down menu.
- In the Preferences menu click on the iMessage tab and first look at the phone number that shows up to make sure that it is the correct number that you use for iMessage on your iPhone. If the number is correct then click on Enable Messages in iCloud then click on Sync Now.
When all the messages have finished syncing you can look through your conversations and select the one that you need a copy of for court. Once you’ve found the chat you want click on it then click on File at the top left menu next to Messages, then select Print from the drop-down menu. Then when the printing window pops up click on Save to PDF. You can then send that PDF of your chat history to your attorney or whoever else needs it.
2. Use a tool to export text messages in PDF/TXT/HTML formats in bulk
If you don’t have a Mac, there is another method you can use to export text messages from iPhone to PDF for court. With this method, you will be learning how to use a third-party tool to export your texts. There are a couple of different programs that offer this type of tool but today we will be using iMobie AnyTrans to get this done. The first thing you will have to do to get started is to go ahead and download iMobie AnyTrans which supports both Windows and macOS.
- Once you’ve gotten iMobie AnyTrans downloaded and fully installed, open it up on your computer.
- With AnyTrans open, connect your iPhone or iOS device that you want to extract your messages from to your computer with a USB.
- Once you’ve been recognized by AnyTrans a new interface will appear. Click on Messages then click on Back up Now on the next screen to backup all your messages on your computer.
- Wait for the backup to finalize. Once AnyTrans has finished its backup process you will see your messages displayed on the interface.
- Now that AnyTrans has access to your messages, choose the messages that you want to export to PDF. You can select to export more than one thread at once.
- Click on the little “Download to” button logo on the top right above your chosen message and select the type of format you want to export in.
Wait as your message goes through the export process. When your message has been exported successfully you can check the PDF files on your computer. If you need need to send another message you can click on the “Transfer more” button on this same page.
The advantage of this method is that you don’t need to set up anything on your computer, you can export the messages with different contact at one time, and you can export the messages to several other formats except for PDF.
3. Take screenshots of the text messages
If for whatever reason you don’t have any access to a Mac or a PC computer but you still need to be able to export text messages from iPhone to PDF for court, then this last option may be your only choice. Even without a computer, you can still get this done.
Go into your App Store on your iOS device and look for a third-party app that can convert images to PDF format. Download the tool and make an account with them if you have to. Now you can go ahead and open up the conversation that you need to export. If you don’t want to download an app, you can also search for an online tool that can convert an image to a PDF.
Unfortunately, this method is a lot more tedious and will take more time. You’ll have to literally take pictures of your entire conversation if you have a long feed and one by one convert those images to PDF.
If you only have a short little message that you can fit in one screenshot then this method would be great for you, it would actually be simpler than the other 2 methods above. Once you’ve got your screenshots converted to PDF you can just email them to your attorney. It’s that simple.
