Conversations are living documents; always changing, evolving, and renewing as we communicate with one another. Most iPhone users take for granted that iCloud and the iMessage server will sync and save those chats, but it’s not foolproof.
How To Download Text Messages From Icloud To Mac With Messages in iCloud, when you delete a message, attachment, or conversation on one device, it deletes from all of your devices. This can help free up some space in your iCloud storage, while keeping the rest of your conversations up to date across your devices. Figure: iPhone backup files in iCloud. Click Messages on the left pane. On the right, you can select, preview, or search for desired messages. In the Save Files dialog box, select Save Computer and browse choose the location on your PC or Mac to save the iPhone messages. Transfer iPhone Text Messages to Computer for Free (on Mac) If you are a Mac user, congratulations, you can export your iPhone messages to Mac by syncing with the iMessage app. The step-by-step guide below will show you how. Please keep reading and learn more about it. Find the icon of the Messages app on your Mac and launch it. (In fact, before you can download and save your Messages with AnyTrans, you’ll need to create a full backup of your iPhone!) You can also migrate any saved data to a new device with AnyTrans or save it to your Mac or storage device for safe keeping. Luckily, you can transfer iPhone Xs Max text messages to PC or Mac computer as a backup file before you delete them on your iPhone Xs Max. You can transfer text messages from iPhone Xs Max to PC or Mac by using a third-party program called Coolmuster iOS Assistant or iOS Assistant for Mac. It is a tool that will scan your iPhone Xs Max for all.
Those with multiple devices – iPhones, iPads, and Macs more specifically – understand conversations don’t always sync up. A chat on iPad sometimes fails to make it to the iPhone. Even entire snippets of conversations can go missing!
Rather than risk losing important data shared via chat, save your messages and conversations when it’s clear you need to retain information for posterity. We’ll show you how to download text messages from iPhone, how to save text messages, download iPhone text messages to your Mac, export text messages from iPhone to any storage device, and which apps make the process quick and easy.
Transfer Messages from iPhone to Computer
You could create an entire backup of your iPhone – and you should – but if you’re looking to save your iMessage conversations exclusively without creating a full backup each time, look to AnyTrans.
AnyTrans is an excellent app for creating full backups but stands apart in its ability to backup and save photos, music, videos, apps, and messages individually. (In fact, before you can download and save your Messages with AnyTrans, you’ll need to create a full backup of your iPhone!)
You can also migrate any saved data to a new device with AnyTrans or save it to your Mac or storage device for safe keeping.
Here’s how to save text messages on iPhone with AnyTrans:
- Open AnyTrans on your Mac
- Plug your iPhone into your Mac with a Lightning cable
- When you see an image of your phone appear in AnyTrans, tap the “Messages” icon on the right side of the app window
- Select the message threads you’d like to save
- Click the “to Mac” icon at the top right of the AnyTrans window
That’s all it takes! Your messages will be saved to your Mac, where you can tuck them into a folder or offload them to an external drive.
Transfer, Backup, and Restore Your Social Messages
AnyTrans also allows you the option to backup, transfer, or restore conversations from popular social media chat services WhatsApp, LINE, and Viber.
Here’s how to backup social media messages with AnyTrans:
- Open AnyTrans on your Mac
- Plug your iPhone into your Mac with a Lightning cable
- When you see an image of your phone appear in AnyTrans, tap the “Social Messages Manager” icon on the left side of the app window
- Choose “Back Up Now” under the social media app you’d like to backup
- Enter your credentials for the app you’re backing up
- Tap “OK”
- Select “Next” at the bottom of the screen
Now our WhatsApp messages are backed up. Transferring and restoring are similar workflows. Just know that you must first backup your messages from the device you want to restore from before adding them to a new device – and both devices must be plugged into your Mac for this process to work. Here we are adding a WhatsApp chat from a previously backed-up Android handset.
Here’s how to transfer social media conversations with AnyTrans:
- Open AnyTrans on your Mac
- Plug your iPhone into your Mac with a Lightning cable
- When you see an image of your phone appear in AnyTrans, tap the “Social Messages Manager” icon on the right side of the app window
- Choose “Transfer” under the social media app you’d like to restore messages from
Select “Next” at the bottom of the next screen
Your WhatsApp conversations will begin transferring between devices.
So what happens if you just want to restore a previously saved conversation? You may have guessed already that you need to click the ‘restore’ option in AnyTrans! Here’s how it’s done:
- Open AnyTrans on your Mac
- Plug your iPhone into your Mac with a Lightning cable
- When you see an image of your phone appear in AnyTrans, tap the “Social Messages Manager” icon on the left side of the app window
- Choose “Restore” under the social media app you’d like to backup
- Select the message backup you’d like to restore to your iPhone
- Tap the “Next” button at the bottom of the screen
Your backup will restore to your device!
Screenshot your Texts
A good old fashioned screenshot may do the trick if you just need to save a small piece of a chat, but know this only creates an image of the screen, and doesn’t log your chat anywhere. If you’re asking yourself “how do I copy an entire text conversation on iPhone?” know screenshotting is definitely not what you’re looking for.
There are apps out there which will take screenshots and stitch them together, but those are also woefully poor for entire conversations. They limit the number of screenshots that can be stitched, and the more screenshots you add the smaller the overall image size will be, making it harder to read.
Here’s how to backup text messages on iPhone with a simple screenshot on an iPhone with Face ID:
- Simultaneously press the side and volume up buttons
- Release both buttons quickly
After you take a screenshot, a thumbnail appears on the bottom left corner of the screen. You can tap that thumbnail to edit or delete the screenshot, or swipe it left to dismiss it and save it to your Photos library. If you take another screenshot while that thumbnail is on-screen, it won’t show up in the next screenshot.
Here’s how to take a screenshot on an iPhone with Touch ID and a side or top button:
- Simultaneously press the side (or top) and Home buttons
- Release both buttons quickly
Bonus Tip: Clear Your iPhone Storage With Ease
Now that you know how to download text messages from iPhone for safe keeping anywhere you want, it’s time to think about the other files, folder, images, and such occupying space on your iPhone and Mac. More to the point, how many documents or pictures are duplicates, or plain unnecessary?
Gemini for iOS digs deep through your iPhone’s image library and distills all your photos into categories like blurred, screenshots, and more. It helps you quickly and easily delete large collections of images, or bulk delete several at a time without needing to dig through your entire library.
As you poke through the categories Gemini has created, simply tap “delete” at the bottom of the screen to remove them all from your library. All images are pre-selected, so tapping on photos you want to save is critical so you don’t inadvertently delete them (but if you do, they’ll be in the ‘trash’ folder of your Photos app for 30 days, so it’s not as bad as it seems!).
Gemini for Mac focusses entirely on duplicate files and photos, but also looks through your image library to find like photos. For those occasions you snapped a series of pictures in succession to use the best one for sharing with others, Gemini will offer to remove duplicates so you can keep the absolute best photo.
For the files on your Mac, Gemini discovers both photos and files or folders which may be the same. It’s a great way to clear space on Macs with limited storage. Gemini is also the best app to have on your iPhone or Mac before creating backups free of unnecessary documents or images.
Conclusion
Creating full backups of an iPhone will automatically save your chat history. Routine backups are something we should all be doing, too.
We also advise anyone who wants more direct access to their chat history should back up conversations as often (or more frequently) than they backup their devices. A separate chat history backup makes it easy to reference old or historically important chat conversations.
Gemini is a great way to eliminate unnecessary files on Mac and iPhone before a backup, and there’s just no better backup manager than AnyTrans. Both are available for free during a seven-day trial of Setapp, the world’s biggest and best suite of native apps for your Mac. Along with these two incredible apps you’ll get immediate and unlimited access to over 100 others, many of which have iOS counterparts you can try as well!
When your free trial ends, Setapp is only $9.99 per month for access to all the incredible apps in its catalog, so why wait? Give Setapp a try today and liven up your Mac with a ton of great apps!
By Vernon Roderick, Last updated: July 26, 2021
Although messages are but tiny pieces of data, they are quite important to most users. They are what we use to communicate with our loved family and friends. That is why it is very crucial to know how you can manage them more effectively.
If you have mistakenly deleted messages on your iPhone, you can go to this article to get the deleted text messages back.
One way to effectively manage your files is by always having access to such files in your Mac. Your messages are no different. This article will show you how you can transfer iPhone messages to Mac so that you easily access them on both platforms. Let’s start with the most effective method.
Download Messages From Iphone To Mac For Free
#1 Transfer iPhone Messages to Mac through Messages App
Most Mac and iPhone users have probably heard of the term “iCloud”. This is only natural since iCloud is a product of the Apple Company themselves. iCloud is basically the place where users can store their files for free. Files contained within this place can be accessed on any platform. That is why it is one way to transfer iPhone messages to Mac.
However, you can’t access your iPhone messages using your Mac just by knowing that. You will have to use the Messages app on your Mac. To use the iCloud feature to transfer iPhone messages to Mac, here’s what you need to do:
- On your iPhone, open the Settings
- Tap on your Apple ID which should have your profile picture and name at the top.
- Select the iCloud
- There should be a list of apps at the bottom. Simply make sure that the option for Messages is green or turned on.
Once you have done the previous steps, your iPhone messages should now be getting synced into the iCloud Drive. All you have to do now is access them on your Mac.
- On your Mac, open the Messages
Note: The Messages app is a default feature on Mac computers so there is no need to install them as it should be on the system long before you purchased it.
- Login using the same Apple account that you use for your iPhone.
- You can now find the messages that were once only on your iPhone using your Mac.
Once you have done this, all the conversations on your Messages app will be available on the iCloud and it will be easy to transfer iPhone messages to Mac. Since that’s the case, the conversations will also be available on the Messages desktop app. The first thing to do on your Mac is to check if it is logged in to the same Apple ID as your phone.
Now all you have to do is to access iCloud on Mac with these steps:
- On your Mac, download the Messages app.
- Launch the Messages app on your Mac.
- Go to the Preferences tab on the window.
- On the Preferences settings, click on the iMessage
- Now make sure the box for Enable Messages in iCloud is checked.
With this, you can access the messages that you have on your iPhone using the Messages app on Mac. It’s not exactly a way to transfer iPhone messages to Mac but to simply access the messages. If you’d like, you can download them.
Either way, you now have access to the messages in two ways and that would be through your iPhone and through your Mac.
#2 Transfer iPhone Messages to Mac through iCloud.com
The previous section involves one way to access iCloud. What you need to know is that there are actually many ways to access iCloud, and this section will talk about one of them. You may have an idea of what the iCloud.com website is. It is basically the website where you go to using your browser to access the iCloud platform, and that would be what we will be doing.
In order to use this method, you have to go to the iCloud website and transfer iPhone messages to Mac, you have to follow these steps:
- Go to the icloud.com website with your browser.
- Enter your Apple ID and password. Make sure this is the same login credentials as the one that you are using on your iPhone device.
- On the website, there will be tons of options. All you have to do is find the option for Messages and click on it.
- Once you are on the Messages platform, you will get a list of conversations on the left side of the platform. Simply right-click on the one you want to transfer and select the option that corresponds to download.
That’s pretty much how you can transfer iPhone messages to Mac through the iCloud.com website. Compared to what you did in the previous section, this is actually a lot easier since you don’t have to download the Messages app. However, you have to visit the website often to get notifications and updates, unlike with the app which is basically open every time.
#3 Transfer iPhone Messages to Mac with iTunes File Sharing
If you are familiar with iCloud, then maybe you also have an idea what iTunes is, since it is a bit similar to what iCloud is and it’s not only in a way that it both ahs the capability to transfer iPhone messages to Mac.
iTunes is a built-in function on every Mac computer just like iCloud. It was originally a multimedia player, but major updates turned it into a multipurpose tool. One of its functions is iTunes File Sharing which allowed users to add and manage files from their iPhones, which is why we will be using this for our goal.
Here’s how you can transfer iPhone messages to Mac with this function:
- Make sure the iPhone is connected to the Mac computer.
- Open iTunes on your Mac.
- Click on the device that corresponds to your iPhone from the left side of the iTunes window.
- Click on Apps from the left sidebar.
- Now scroll down until you see the File Sharing
- Under the Apps, select Messages.
- Now you will get a list of conversations on the right side of the window. Select the one you want to transfer and save it.
The iTunes File Sharing feature was created so you can transfer files from specific apps. Since Messages is basically an app, you can transfer iPhone messages to Mac with this feature.
#4 Transfer iPhone Messages to Mac using Text Message Forwarding
One method to transfer iPhone messages to Mac than not many know about is the Text Message Forwarding feature in the Messages app settings. Since only a handful of iPhones has this feature, it’s understandable why it’s not a very popular method. Either way, here’s how you can use this feature:
- On your iPhone, go to the Settings app.
- Scroll down and tap on the Messages
- You should now be on the Messages app settings.
- Here, look for Text Message Forwarding. Tap on this option.
- There should be a list of devices here. Make sure your Mac is included. That way, you can access the Messages normally, and it’s up to you whether you want to download them.
Either way, you should now be able to transfer iPhone messages to Mac more easily from now on. Just make sure that you are careful so as to avoid data loss on your messages.
Alternative to Transfer iPhone Messages to Computer with Software
Normally, we will use a tool to do the job for us. This guide to transfer iPhone messages to Mac is no exception. However, as unfortunate as it may be, the software that I normally recommend, FoneDog Phone Transfer, doesn’t support Mac.
Download Messages From Iphone To Mac
In that case, you may want to look elsewhere. But if you happen to enter a situation where you need to transfer files that don’t involve Mac, FoneDog Phone Transfer would be your best bet.
FoneDog Phone Transfer is a tool that specializes in transferring all kinds of files from one device to another. It supports iOS, Android, and Windows PC. The best thing about this is that unlike other tools, it is capable of transferring messages. Nonetheless, you should look into it if you want a reliable tool always available to you.
Phone TransferTransfer files among iOS, Android and Windows PC.Transfer and backup text messages, contacts, photos, video, music on computer easily.Fully compatible with iOS 13 and Android 9.0.Free Download
Conclusion
No one wants their messages to be inaccessible to their devices. That is why Mac users tend to look for ways to transfer iPhone messages to Ma cwhen they don’t use their iPhones often. Fortunately, Apple answered them with these five methods.
Although you can now transfer iPhone messages to Mac, you should still be cautious when handling your messages. After all, they are still vulnerable to data loss even if you can access them through your iPhone and Mac.