Please help me quickly preserve texts from lost loved one
February 22, 2022 7:03 AM Subscribe
I am trying to save the texts from my loved one who recently passed away. I have a couple year long thread of texts with them on my fading Samsung android phone. I am looking for some simple way to preserve them and get them off of this phone as it will not likely last much longer. I am not technologically savvy. I would be grateful for any assistance. Thank you.
I am trying to save the texts from my loved one who recently passed away. I have a couple year long thread of texts with them on my fading Samsung android phone. I am looking for a way to email them to myself, or forward them to another number. Some simple way to preserve them and get them off of this phone as it will not likely last much longer. The cell phone carrier said they could email them to me but has not done so and I am not confident they will come through. Samsung said the only thing to do is take screenshots. I can't even seem to do that and it would take forever.
I am not technologically savvy. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I am trying to save the texts from my loved one who recently passed away. I have a couple year long thread of texts with them on my fading Samsung android phone. I am looking for a way to email them to myself, or forward them to another number. Some simple way to preserve them and get them off of this phone as it will not likely last much longer. The cell phone carrier said they could email them to me but has not done so and I am not confident they will come through. Samsung said the only thing to do is take screenshots. I can't even seem to do that and it would take forever.
I am not technologically savvy. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
If you are not tech savvy, you can just screen capture the thread and e-mail the screenshot pictures to yourself.
posted by IWantAnswers at 7:30 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by IWantAnswers at 7:30 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Do you have a PC (or Mac) that you could download the messages to? If so, there are lots of apps that can help you do this. I am an iPhone user so I don't have specific ones to recommend, but here's a page that describes a few of them for Android/Samsung.
Also do you have the ability to backup your phone now? That way even if the phone dies, you will still be able to restore the messages (and other stuff).
posted by mskyle at 7:45 AM on February 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also do you have the ability to backup your phone now? That way even if the phone dies, you will still be able to restore the messages (and other stuff).
posted by mskyle at 7:45 AM on February 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thank you all for the quick responses. I appreciate it. I did download Samsung Switch and back up my phone with that and connect it to my macbook, but unfortunately I can't actually see any texts that we saved. Although it says that messages were backed up?
MsKyle, thank you for that page. I had not found that and will review it for guidance as well.
posted by fies at 8:07 AM on February 22, 2022
MsKyle, thank you for that page. I had not found that and will review it for guidance as well.
posted by fies at 8:07 AM on February 22, 2022
Can you do messages for web? Sorry, I couldn't get the link to work: messages.google.com
That might help.
posted by poppunkcat at 8:13 AM on February 22, 2022
That might help.
posted by poppunkcat at 8:13 AM on February 22, 2022
I've used SMS Backup and Restore several times, including last week, to back up messages. Basic app is free, some features may need the $5 paid version.
It will back up texts and images in an XML file, which is a special type of text file. You can open that in an text editor but they have an online viewer you can open your file with to give it nice formatting.
The app itself can backup to Google drive, Dropbox, email, etc to make it easy to transfer off of you phone.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:33 AM on February 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
It will back up texts and images in an XML file, which is a special type of text file. You can open that in an text editor but they have an online viewer you can open your file with to give it nice formatting.
The app itself can backup to Google drive, Dropbox, email, etc to make it easy to transfer off of you phone.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:33 AM on February 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
Quick solution I have used: make a video of the screen while you scroll through the texts.
posted by amtho at 8:51 AM on February 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by amtho at 8:51 AM on February 22, 2022 [8 favorites]
Just a quickie about SMS Backup and Restore: do it once (or regularly) manually, but don't set it to automatically backup. The files are huge and will fill up your Google drive quite quickly.
posted by Dashy at 9:17 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Dashy at 9:17 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you all for your help. I shared the SMS Backup information with a friend who has offered to set it up and hopefully it will be a success. Thanks!
posted by fies at 11:08 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by fies at 11:08 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I just got a new Samsung and they have a process to pull over all your data from your old phone. It brought over all my texts automatically. You just put them on the same wifi and put the phones near each other anthe new phone basically clones the old one. The only thing that doesn't transfer is data saved in third party apps.
It's part of the standard new phone set up, I didnt use an app or other service.
posted by ananci at 2:22 PM on February 22, 2022
It's part of the standard new phone set up, I didnt use an app or other service.
posted by ananci at 2:22 PM on February 22, 2022
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However, last time I did this was probably 5 years ago, and there are likely better tools now. But there is still almost certainly an app out there to do this for you.
posted by phunniemee at 7:17 AM on February 22, 2022 [3 favorites]