Preserving Text Messages of a Loved One Who Has Passed Away
One of the most difficult and profound things to experience in life is the death or passing of a loved one. Whether that person happens to be your mother, father, brother, sister, a grandparent, or other family or friends, the loss of someone close to you comes with an overwhelming range of emotions, from sadness and sorrow, to stress and confusion.
When a family member or friend dies, it can immediately feel like there are a million tasks that need to be handled. Whether these tasks include notifying family members and acquaintances of the death, or having to identify and gain access to various accounts in the loved one’s name, the amount of paperwork and miscellaneous things to oversee can be overwhelming.
During this process and while continuing to grieve, family members often realize that they want to preserve memories shared between themselves and their loved one who is now deceased. This often means printing out emails or trying to locate photos either on their computer or in the loved one’s PC or Mac. Family members also often need to figure out a way to save text messages from the loved one’s phone while the device is still active and accessible.
In the USA there are over 6 billion texts being sent every day. Text Messages with loved ones or family members almost always contain precious memories, including photos and videos. The need to save and preserve these memories and communications is becoming more commonplace every year, especially as we build up a rich history of text messages over time on our mobile devices with friends and family.
Software to preserve, save, and print text messages with loved ones or family
Here at Decipher Tools offices in San Francisco and Phoenix, we often receive emails from iPhone users throughout the year inquiring about how best to preserve the text messages they exchanged with someone who has died.
The desktop program Decipher TextMessage gives anyone the ability to save text messages and iMessages of a loved one who has passed away. Accomplishing this task will also hopefully help ease some of the pain that comes with the passing of someone close to you.
Today's tutorial is for iPhone and iPad users who want to preserve text messages either from their loved one's phone or from their own device.
How to save and print text messages of a loved one who has died
Follow these specific steps to save and print text messages from someone who has died
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Plug your iPhone into your computer.
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Open Decipher TextMessage and select "Back Up".
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Chose your iPhone.
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Select any contact that has text messages you want to save or print after the person has died or passed away.
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Pick "Export PDF" to save the text messages of the loved one died.
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Open the saved PDF and choose print to print out the text messages.
Download Decipher Text Message
When you open Decipher TextMessage on your computer you'll immediately see any existing iPhone backups in the left-hand column of the program.
If you don't see your iPhone or iPad in the program, you would need to make a backup of that phone on your computer to get the iOS device to show up!
To make a backup of your iPhone simply plug your iPhone into your computer and select "Back Up" in the menu of Decipher TextMessage. Note: iTunes is no longer required to make the backup.
To save text messages, simply click on any contact in Decipher TextMessage and you'll see the messages with that person in the right column of the software.
Select "Export" and then pick the "Current Conversation PDF" option in the menu. You can now copy and save all your iPhone text messages with that family member or loved one to your computer.
After exporting text messages, many people like to also print out the saved messages for safekeeping and archiving. Exported messages will also contain any photos or video attachments that were part of the conversations with your loved one. Here's a saved PDF of what text messages looks like:
When you print out your exported text messages, the messages will be displayed in iOS “chat-bubble” format just as they appear on your iPhone or iPad. You can then save the messages in PDF format which will enable you to email or share the exported text conversations to other family members or friends.
Your saved messages with any loved one or family member will remain in Decipher TextMessage on your computer ongoing and only you have access to your data. All your family's text message history, photos, and videos are private on your PC or Mac computer.
Pro Tip: Even if your loved one's passing was not a recent occurrence, text messages are often still accessible years later from any previous iPhone backups that are on a family member's computer. In order to save the messages you would access either to the iPhone or to the computer where your loved one backed up their iOS device.
You can run Decipher TextMessage on any Windows or Mac computer and the program will automatically read in any existing iPhone backups on the computer. This is a great way to see if your loved one or family member has legacy text messages and photos/video attachments on their PC or Mac.
Video Instructions - Save and print text messages of someone who has died
Our helpful video is a convenient way to follow along with each of the steps required to print and save text messages from any loved one or family member that has passed away.
Moving forward and preserving memories by saving text messages
The death of a parent, partner, sibling, or other loved one is one of the most profound things anyone will experience.
If you want to ensure that your text messages with your mother, father, grandparents, or anyone on close to you are preserved for you and your family, it only takes a few minutes out of your day to transfer the messages to your desktop or laptop computer.
By archiving the iPhone text messages off of the device, either to your computer or to an external hard drive or cloud storage solution, it will ensure that your personal communications and memories with your loved one will be safe and sound for years to come.
If you have any questions about accessing iPhone text messages or iMessages with someone who has passed away, feel free to contact us anytime via our Decipher Tools support page. We're a USA based company and we respond to everyone and we're always happy to help or field questions regarding your own specific iPhone text message archiving needs.