Instructions for Tenants to Save and Print Text Messages with a Landlord

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Jay Walsh

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How tenants can save and print text messages with their landlord

In the United States approximately 35% of households live in rental properties. Most tenants and renters have a need at some point during their lease to contact their landlord regarding the property. Whether the rental property is a residential house, apartment, or even commercial office space, communicating with one’s landlord is a common occurrence.

Tenants today find that many of their communications with a landlord are via text messages. In today’s fast paced world, over 6 billion text messages sent everyday just in the USA alone.

Common reasons for a tenant texting a landlord:

  • To request that repairs be made on the property.
  • Questions about rent due dates or rental increases.
  • Granting a landlord permission to enter the property.
  • Property safety or security questions.
  • Reaching out to the landlord about neighbors or building noise issues.

Tenants often find that contacting a landlord via text message is a quicker and more efficient way to communicate than email or even phone. Landlords also find that the ability to instantly respond via text to a tenant’s inquiry or concern is a fast and easy way to deal with any tenant-related issues.

What software does a tenant need to save messages with their landlord?

For any tenant that uses an iPhone or iPad, the desktop software Decipher TextMessage will enable them to capture and print text messages or iMessages that they have exchanged with their landlord.

Decipher TextMessage runs on any Mac or Windows computer and not directly on the iPhone itself. The program has several helpful features including displaying the the time, date, and contact information on every single text message both sent and received. The program also gives users the ability to save photo and video attachments that are included in the text message thread or conversation.

Instructions for tenants to save and print iPhone text messages with a landlord

Tenants can follow these specific steps to save and print out text messages with landlords.

  1. Back up your iPhone on a computer.

  2. Open Decipher TextMessage.

  3. Select your iPhone.

  4. Choose the contact that has tenant or landlord related text messages that you want to save.

  5. Pick "Export."

  6. Open the PDF and choose "Print" to print out the text messages between the tenant and the landlord.


Download Decipher Text Message

For any tenant that wants to save or print landlord or property-related text messages, the first thing to do is back up the iPhone on a computer. If you are currently on a Mac that runs either macOS Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, or Catalina, you can make a back up of your iPhone via the Finder. All other Mac and Windows can backup their iOS device via iTunes on their computer.

Note: Decipher TextMessage also has a unique "text only" backup option in the program that will let users back up just their text messages and attachments. Some users like this option if they are low on hard drive space on their computer and want to minimize drive space requirements when making a backup.

Once you have plugged your iPhone into your computer to make a backup either via iTunes or the Finder, you'll see the option to "Back Up Now" like in the screenshot example below

Select Back Up Now to back up your iPhone to print out tenant or landlord related text messages.

After backing up your iPhone, when you first launch Decipher TextMessage you'll see your iOS device in the left-hand column of the program. Here is an example:

Open Decipher TextMessage and you'll see your iPhone so you can save text messages with your landlord.

Select the iPhone in the left-hand column of Decipher TextMessage.

Pick an iPhone by clicking on the device.

After selecting your iPhone you can now pick any contact that has text messages that you want to save or print out. In the example below on Julia's iPhone her landlord Steve has been selected in the contacts column. All the messages then appear in the right column of the software.

Pick a contact that has text messages you want to print from iPhone to document tenant or landlord SMS exchanges.

Choose "Export" and select the "Current Conversation PDF" option. Your iPhone text messages between you and your landlord will now be saved to your PC or Mac computer.

Pick "Export" to save iPhone text messages to computer.

Open the saved PDF on your computer and select "Print" to print out the tenant / landlord text messages along with any photo attachments.

Open the PDF that contains the text messages between landlord and tenant and print them out.

Pro Tip: As mentioned above, when you print out the text messages as a PDF with Decipher TextMessage, the contact information and time/date stamp and will appear on every single text message both sent and received! This is a helpful feature to make sure tenants and landlord text message communications are properly documented.

Video Tutorial - Printing text messages between a tenant and landlord

Our helpful YouTube video will show you the steps on how to print text messages out as a PDF so that you have the tenant / landlord conversations saved and documented.

Do you need further help?

We hope that today's Decipher Tools tutorial has been helpful. If you are a tenant or a landlord and need additional help to save and print your iPhone text messages, just contact us via our Decipher Tools support page and one of our team in either San Francisco or Phoenix will get back to you.