How to save text messages from someone who has died
Their messages are kept in two places: on their phone, and on the phone of each person they wrote to. A conversation they had with you is on your own phone in full, and that is the simpler place to start.
Until the messages are saved somewhere else, keep the phone as it is. Do not erase it, trade it in or delete the conversation.
Do I need their phone?
Not for a conversation you were part of. Your own phone has both sides of it.
How do I save an iMessage conversation?
It takes a computer, a Mac or a Windows PC. iMessage keeps conversations on Apple devices, and no phone app can read them.
On a Windows PC, you back the iPhone up with Apple Devices. That backup is itself a saved copy of the messages on the phone. On a Mac, our app reads the conversation from Messages.
How to export an iMessage conversation has every step.
How do I save a chat from another app?
In WhatsApp, open the conversation, tap its name at the top, then Export Chat. Choose Without Media, then Save to Files. The file it saves is the whole chat as text. Keep a copy somewhere other than the phone.
Instagram and Messenger come from Meta's download of your messages. The steps are on the Instagram and Messenger pages.
What if their phone will not turn on?
If it was ever backed up to a computer, that backup can be read without the phone. A phone that will not turn on and was never backed up cannot be read.
How to get messages off an old or broken iPhone goes through it.
Can you get into a locked phone or an account?
We cannot. We do not open a locked phone, and we never ask for an Apple ID or the password to an account.
If you want them as a book
read receipts prints a conversation as a book, exactly as it was sent. No person reads your messages. Nothing is rewritten. One person makes it, and extra copies can go to family. There is more on the page about a book of their messages.