I don't have an android phone so I don't know what options there are. I'm trying to help my mom get her text messages off her Galaxy S to her computer in a text format. All google comes up with are android backup aplications. I take it there isn't anyway to copy SMS messages straight from the phone to the computer? If so, how do I do it? If not, anybody have a backup aplication they recommend for copying SMS text messages to a text format on the PC?


Thanks!

 

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There are apps that dump it to text on the SD card. From there you can just USB them over right?

 

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Yes, if I could get it as text on the SD card I could then copy it from that to the PC. Know the names of the apps that will dump it as text to the SD card?

 

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I know "SMS Backup & Restore" will backup to xml and you can even schedule it to do it regularly. From what I understand you can even have it email the file when it runs. I haven't used it but it has decent reviews and looks like it does what you need.

I use Backup to GMail myself as it dumps all my history (sms/mms/call log) to my gmail account which is perfect for me. Not going to help you in this case but in case you were looking for other options.

 

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When Backup to GMail dumps the history, is it accessable from GMail? Or is it just a normal backup incase you need to restore it later? She has a gmail account. So if you can access the SMS's from the gmail account after the dump, that would probably be better for her.

 

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It sends everything as individual messages with labels you define (I use SMS, MMS, Call Log) so is fully viewable, searchable, threaded, etc just like normal Gmail emails.

EDIT: This is awesome for me since most everything I do goes through gmail anyway. So I can search one place and odds are I will find that time I contacted a client via email or they sent me an SMS with an access code in it or I called them or whatever. I have it automatically backing up too so it stays pretty current.

Oh and I did use it for a backup recovery when I changed phones and though it wasn't painless or perfect it did do the job. I had to do it a couple times and it seemed to get confused with some things (some contacts didn't associate with call history so they showed as unknown, could've been the phone too) but overall everything made it and is usable which is all that mattered to me. Your mileage may vary though as I keep EVERYTHING for client tracking purposes so there was a lot to move.

 

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thanks. I'll give one of those a try for my mom

 

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ive used sms back up for years, it goes to your gmail and looks just like an email string. works great, and does it in the back ground and you can do it manually or auto.

 

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This is what I use...
https://market.android.com/details?id=tv.studer.smssync&feature=search_result

 

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