Can I read and save my SMS messages to my PC?

petermg · #1 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 05:28 PM

I have tons of SMS messages from over a year.. I would like to back them up to my PC and search through them there. Anyonw know of any such software????

Swin · #2 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 06:12 PM

There's Efficasoft Mobile Express. Free, available here: http://www.efficasoft.com/mobileexpress/index.html

It can be obnoxious when it's connecting (when it fails have to exit & restart), and I think it requires your phone be set for ActiveSync without "advanced networking", which is also annoying.

Once running though, it's convenient and useful, can send/receive/organize/search messages on phone from PC, can also back them up (export) to a text file format on the PC. (Though I'm not sure if you can search those through the program.) Although I think searching or exporting was irritating until I figured it out - don't erase from phone without inspecting your export.

There are PPC applications which will do backups, many payware (doesn't mean they'll have easily readable formats).

You can fuss with PIM Backup (freeware) and end up with a .csm of your messages which you can import and parse with Excel... bit of a hassle. (Uncheck 'binary', open .pib like a .zip)

I'm sure there's some nicer easily-readable solutions for on PPC, anyone? Mobile Express does a decent job.

petermg · #3 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 06:59 PM

Swin, thank you!!

I will try that software. Basically I need to find a correspondence I had with someone from last year, for legal reasons, and I have tried using the "search" feature but even though it will find what I'm looking for, as soon as I double click on it, it just brings me to the LATEST correspondence rather than what I have clicked on.

I found this:
http://www.smsexport.com/
but for ME it gives me an out of memory exception after a while, but it's free and may work for others who don't have as many txt messages as I do.

orentha · #4 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 07:12 PM

what about microsoft myphone ?

you can setup an account, and sync it. then log into your myphone website, and all the txts are there. and searchable

petermg · #5 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by orentha

what about microsoft myphone ?

you can setup an account, and sync it. then log into your myphone website, and all the txts are there. and searchable

Thank you, I will try that also!!!

petermg · #6 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swin

There's Efficasoft Mobile Express. Free, available here: http://www.efficasoft.com/mobileexpress/index.html

It can be obnoxious when it's connecting (when it fails have to exit & restart), and I think it requires your phone be set for ActiveSync without "advanced networking", which is also annoying.

Once running though, it's convenient and useful, can send/receive/organize/search messages on phone from PC, can also back them up (export) to a text file format on the PC. (Though I'm not sure if you can search those through the program.) Although I think searching or exporting was irritating until I figured it out - don't erase from phone without inspecting your export.

There are PPC applications which will do backups, many payware (doesn't mean they'll have easily readable formats).

You can fuss with PIM Backup (freeware) and end up with a .csm of your messages which you can import and parse with Excel... bit of a hassle. (Uncheck 'binary', open .pib like a .zip)

I'm sure there's some nicer easily-readable solutions for on PPC, anyone? Mobile Express does a decent job.

Gets through the 4 step process, starts reading my folders.. then fails

This after I disabled the advanced networking. Until I did that, it didn't see my phone at all.

petermg · #7 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by orentha

what about microsoft myphone ?

you can setup an account, and sync it. then log into your myphone website, and all the txts are there. and searchable

well it IS searchable.. but doesn't show me any option to go to the NEXT or PREVIOUS message from it's result... :\

petermg · #8 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 08:21 PM

Why is this SO COMPLICATED? All I want to do is TRANSFER my SMS messages onto my PC in a format that I can read them in. OMFG!!!!

Swin · #9 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by petermg

Gets through the 4 step process, starts reading my folders.. then fails

This after I disabled the advanced networking. Until I did that, it didn't see my phone at all.

That's unfortunate, what with its acceptable export format.

If you backup messages with PIM Backup, unchecking 'binary', then open the .pib (rename .zip if you want) with 7-zip/WinZip/WinRAR and extract the msgs_xxx.csm file you can open this in Microsoft Excel (or OpenOffice Calc I'd think). In Excel's import wizard you'd specify it as a delimited data format, delimited by the ; semicolon character.

The resulting spreadsheet is messy, unthreaded, and so on, but all the data would be there and searchable.

It's possible that PIM Backup would be less prone to choking from SMS quantity and otherwise.

Merely a solution, I expect better.

petermg · #10 (**permalink**) 12-13-2009, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swin

That's unfortunate, what with its acceptable export format.

If you backup messages with PIM Backup, unchecking 'binary', then open the .pib (rename .zip if you want) with 7-zip/WinZip/WinRAR and extract the msgs_xxx.csm file you can open this in Microsoft Excel (or OpenOffice Calc I'd think). In Excel's import wizard you'd specify it as a delimited data format, delimited by the ; semicolon character.

The resulting spreadsheet is messy, unthreaded, and so on, but all the data would be there and searchable.

It's possible that PIM Backup would be less prone to choking from SMS quantity and otherwise.

Merely a solution, I expect better.

Thank you!!!!