Posted on 08/19/2023 10:38:54 AM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder
I'm interested in transferring a 4-month duration conversation from my Android phone to a PC, mostly just for recordkeeping and some included photos. Over a USB cable is fine, actually preferred.
I've searched "transfer android texts to PC" quite a bit and there seem to be about ten different ways to do this. They all seem to cost. I've tried about half a dozen with the intention to cancel during the "free trial" period. They not only do not seem to work, they don't even appear to threaten to work.
It doesn't matter to me if the texts arrive as texts or as a pdf. (Some programs available permit both/either)
Most of the phone apps require that the phone is placed into "developer" mode, which I have done. [bizarre]
Clearly, you have to have a piece of software on the PC and an app on the phone. S'OK. But I can't get any PC software (windows 11) to even see the individual files on the phone (I have many conversations on the phone and I could live with transferring ALL of them and editing out the ones I don't want, but I can't seem to get the PC to recognize anything but the phone itself; eg, nothing shows up on "File manager" where I would expect the contents of the phone to show up as if the thing was an external hard drive or camera or similar USB device.
Does anyone known a KNOWN TO WORK means of accomplishing this?
SMS Backup and Restore
E-mail it to yourself would be the easiest option I could come up with.
Two easy methods come to mind.
Screen shots then e-mail the pics
Copy and paste into a e-mail.
Both work fine with IOS and probably would with Android
There is also the option to take a screen shot. There are free apps to covert screenshots to PDF.
This sometimes happens if your cell phone goes back to the lock screen.
Unlock the phone with your PIN while it is attached to the PC and you should be able to see the contents in the File Manager.
-PJ
Are you wanting to backup an entire SMS conversation or a single text? The normal backup process stores it in the cloud or on your computer, but in that format it’s not readable. Lots of unanswered questions.
If you need just occasional one-offs, forward your text message(s) to your email address to get it into your PC.
May be time consuming buy its free. Most texts will allow you to forward or share them via email.
I had to do this for a court case and we just screen shot them and emailed them to ourselves then printed them. Yes it was a bit time consuming but we won our case. Some people don’t think you have 5 year old texts any longer but they would be wrong.
I use SMS Backup+ (free) on Android to transfer my SMS texts to my Gmail account. Then, I use Outlook to download Gmail emails. So, texts are now downloaded to Outlook PST file on computer.
On Android phones, sometimes you need to switch the mode on the phone also (from charging to file transfer or some similar setting).
I’ve also seen some USB-C cables that will only charge the phone when the connector is inserted in one direction, but if you reinsert the connector 180 degrees out from the way it was you will see file transfer options also. There are also some cables that aren’t functional for file transfer.
Ugh, forget the following snag:
Some time ago, my gmail account was hacked and my password changed. This means (obviously) that while the “last-good” emails show on my phone, I can’t get to gmail for any practical purpose other than to read what’s there as of 10/22.
The emails piled up until my email storage was about 23 GB. Free (what I have) gmail runs to 15 GB...the system just somehow allowed a crapload of messages to accumulate without shutting down my inbox. Once you are over the limit, you cannot forward messages or anything else, including screenshots.
So, no problem, buy the add’l storage for $3 a month. Well, I can’t because I need my password (hacked, changed, and now unknown) to add onto existing storage.
OK, delete messages until you are under 15 GB. Well, I deleted all my big files & attachments. That took me from 23 GB to 20 GB. Now I have a bazillion headers (tiny messages) but it would probably take over a year of constant effort to delete 5+GB of little headers! Every time I sit with the phone doing nothing I delete 80 or 100 messages, that’s a few MB but I can see the rate of deletion is infinitesimal compared to 5+GB.
So I can’t forward screenshots, which would be horribly klutzy anyway with a 500+ text SMS convo.
It would be ideal to find 2 companion pieces of software, 1 on the PC, 1 on the phone, that would let me view (and copy) the text messages on the phone to a folder on the PC. Seems so trivial, clearly the messages exist on the phone or even in the cloud but I obviously can get to them to display them on the phone. I’ve found at least 4 instances of that exact thing-—the paired pieces opf software. Sign up for the trial version, the PC (via USB cable) doesn’t seem to recognize anything like a file structure on the phone. It sees the phone, and that’s it.
Unless and until I can find what I’m looking for, it seems like the only solution is to delete my existing gmail account (not so terrible, it’s pretty much useless as things are) and start over with a fresh account. I will give a while longer to see if any FR gurus have the genius idea.
Thanks everyone in advance, for the suggestions!
Copy the thread to your email and send it to yourself.
I know with an iPhone, I can see my texts on my Mac. If I open the thread, I can select File:Print. Then if I select save as pdf, it will generate a pdf copy of the thread—but won’t include images.
The other option is to screen record the text thread. It won’t transfer text to be editable, but if you scroll down the thread it will create a video of it in your photos.
Obviously, Android options may be different. But I am sure there are similar options.
I have Windows 11 and an Android Note 9.
I have an app called Phone Link that will do what you want.
On my Android I think the same app is called Link to Windows.
I don’t remember how I got them working right, but the computer sees everything that’s on my phone.
It’s all wireless.
Sync Your Smartphone to Your Windows Computer
It will do what you want. Alternatively, either maintain your backups of the device or use a third-party cloud storage provider like OneDrive. That would make the photos and videos accessible on both devices.
Textra
Plenty of apps out in the MS store or iPhone/Android.
I bought “iMfone D-Back” and “Decipher text message”....they get it all.
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