Saving Your iMessage Chats on iPhone

General
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These days, we use messages for pretty much everything, right? It’s just the way we communicate now. Some of those messages become important, holding special memories or crucial info. Naturally, you might want to save these conversations, but iMessage doesn’t make it super easy.

There’s no direct export option for entire iMessage conversations. If you’re switching to a new iPhone, an iCloud backup helps transfer them, but if you’re moving to Android, or have another reason for needing those messages elsewhere, you’ll need a workaround. And yeah, they’re not always ideal.

But don’t worry, you can still get to your messages. So, let’s take a look at how to do it.

Method 1: Saving as a PDF

This method allows you to compile and save your messages in an organized way.

  1. First, you’ll need to copy the messages. To do this, open your conversation in the Messages app, then tap and hold on any message. Select ‘More’.

    Select More
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  2. Tap on the other messages you want to include to select them. Once you’ve selected all the necessary messages, tap the ‘Forward’ arrow located in the bottom-right corner.

Tap Forward
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  1. Now, tap inside the message area, and then choose ‘Select All’.

Select All
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  1. Select ‘Copy’ from the options that appear.

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  1. You can also use the Copy gesture – place three fingers on the screen and pinch them inward – to copy the text.

  2. Open the Pages app and create a new document, then paste the copied messages into the document.

  3. Next, tap the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner.

Tap three dots
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  1. Choose ‘Export’.

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  1. Finally, select ‘PDF’ to save your messages as a PDF file.

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Method 2: Forwarding Your Messages

If you’d prefer not to use screenshots, then forwarding your messages as text is an alternative. This method takes a little time, but you can pick which messages you want to keep. Just keep in mind all your messages will be clumped together. There will be no name or time stamps.

  1. Open the conversation, tap and hold on the first message you want to forward and then tap ‘More’.
  2. Tap all the other messages you want to include.
  3. Tap the forward button in the bottom-right corner.
  4. Now, you can forward them to yourself in iMessage. But if you want to save them somewhere else, select all the text, copy it, and paste it into an email, note, or anywhere else you like.

Method 3: Screenshotting Your Chats

It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s one of the quickest methods. This works better for saving smaller, important parts of a chat.

This method preserves the look of your messages. So the message bubbles make it easy to see who said what.

  1. On your iPhone, press the side button (lock/ wake up button) and the volume button at the same time until a screenshot appears in the lower-left of your screen.

Screenshot
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  1. The screenshot will save automatically. If you want to make any edits, tap the thumbnail before it disappears and then ‘Done’. After that, tap ‘Save to Photos’ to save. You can also save them to files.

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You can keep the screenshots in your photos, transfer them to your computer, email them to yourself, or store them in cloud storage.

It’s definitely not easy to export iMessages, but with these workarounds, you have options to get those messages saved.