archiving texts from Burner app?
November 30, 2022 8:14 AM Subscribe
Looking for a more efficient and manageable way to copy or export texts from the Burner phone app. Either an app that will help or (more likely) workflow tips to help manage and stitch back together a zillion screenshots.
For a few years I've been using a dedicated app (Burner) for a particular set of communications. I want to export or copy a long string of texts from it, but unfortunately Burner won't let you archive or export text threads--their recommendation is screenshots: "We unfortunately don't have any way to export or save conversation history. The best way to archive that info is to screenshot any important information."
I don't mind ending up with screen-grabbed images of the thread instead of formattable text itself, but the process is tedious and hard to manage. It's hard to stitch them together, it's easy to lose place in the conversation and get screenshots misordered, and it's annoying and again tedious to crop out today's date and battery level on every image. I am trying to pull these together into a project where I have some control over which texts appear on which page, without retyping everything or struggling with so many fiddly and error-inducing format steps.
Do you have recommendations for (a) an app or program that might help with this, or (b) workflow suggestions for grabbing/reassembling years' worth of text conversations?
(NOT interested in suggestions for a different texting app, thanks.)
For a few years I've been using a dedicated app (Burner) for a particular set of communications. I want to export or copy a long string of texts from it, but unfortunately Burner won't let you archive or export text threads--their recommendation is screenshots: "We unfortunately don't have any way to export or save conversation history. The best way to archive that info is to screenshot any important information."
I don't mind ending up with screen-grabbed images of the thread instead of formattable text itself, but the process is tedious and hard to manage. It's hard to stitch them together, it's easy to lose place in the conversation and get screenshots misordered, and it's annoying and again tedious to crop out today's date and battery level on every image. I am trying to pull these together into a project where I have some control over which texts appear on which page, without retyping everything or struggling with so many fiddly and error-inducing format steps.
Do you have recommendations for (a) an app or program that might help with this, or (b) workflow suggestions for grabbing/reassembling years' worth of text conversations?
(NOT interested in suggestions for a different texting app, thanks.)
Many Android phones have a feature to take scrolling screenshots. Usually, it's implemented so that you take the first screenshot, then in the floating menu that pops up, you press (or press-and-hold) a button to scroll, and the window automatically scrolls down and appends the new portion to the bottom of the image. You can repeat until you get to the bottom, or as far as you want to go. You then end up with an image that is the width of your screen, but much taller.
It was only added natively in Android 12, but many manufacturers implemented it before that, in various ways. Supposedly there's a way to do something similar using iOS, but it sounds clunky and I have no experience with it.
You do have to make sure that your method of getting the screenshot off your phone doesn't compress the image to a maximum height, and therefore lose all the detail, but if that happens, just go back to the screenshot and use a different method to get it off the phone.
posted by yuwtze at 3:53 PM on November 30, 2022
It was only added natively in Android 12, but many manufacturers implemented it before that, in various ways. Supposedly there's a way to do something similar using iOS, but it sounds clunky and I have no experience with it.
You do have to make sure that your method of getting the screenshot off your phone doesn't compress the image to a maximum height, and therefore lose all the detail, but if that happens, just go back to the screenshot and use a different method to get it off the phone.
posted by yuwtze at 3:53 PM on November 30, 2022
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posted by oceano at 3:49 PM on November 30, 2022