How to print a text message conversation

@craigelloyd
Updated Jul 11, 2017, 9:20 pm EST | 4 min read

While you can easily back up your text messages to your computer so that you don’t lose them, sometimes a text message conversation is so important that you also might need a paper copy to keep in a safe place. Here’s how to print out text message conversations so that you’ll always have a physical copy available in case of emergency.

Why Would I Want to Do This?

Any time you have a text message conversation with someone that’s extremely important, it’s always a good idea to keep a backup of it so that you’ll have it on record whenever you need it. Even if you back up these text messages to your computer, it’s always a good idea to keep them backed up somewhere else as well.

With that said, having a physical, printed-out copy of an important text message conversation is great to have. Maybe you were texting someone about something that could prove useful in court during a hearing, or you just want to save the last text messages you received from a friend who passed away–it’s never a bad idea to print them out and keep them safe somewhere.

Using AirPrint or Google Cloud Print

If you have a printer that supports Apple’s AirPrint or Google Cloud Print on Android devices, then you can print out your text message conversations right from your device. If you’re not sure if your printer supports either one of these features, check here to see if your printer supports AirPrint, and check here for Google Cloud Print.

Unfortunately, though, there’s no built-in feature for print out text message conversations. Neither iOS or Android have features that allow you to do this, but there is a workaround that’s still fairly easy.

The first thing you’ll need to do is open up the text message conversation on your phone and take a screenshot. To do this on an iOS device, simply press down on the home button and power button at the same time. On Android, it depends what device you have, but more than likely it’s the volume down button and power button. If you need to print out more than what’s shown on the screen, simply scroll up or down to show the previous text messages and take another screenshot.

All of your screenshots will save to your photo gallery on your phone where all of your other photos are stored. From there, you can print out these screenshots.

On iOS

If you have an iPhone or iPad, start by opening up the Photos app.

Tap on “Screenshots”.

Tap on “Select” in the top-right corner of the screen and tap on each screenshot to select it if you have more than one screenshot you want to print out. If not, just tap on the single screenshot to open it.

Tap on the share button down in the bottom-right corner.

At the very bottom, scroll to the right and select “Print”.

If your printer isn’t already selected, tap on “Select Printer”.

Select your printer when it appears.

Tap on “Print” in the top-right corner and the screenshot will begin to print.

On Android

Using Google Cloud Print, you can print directly from your Android device to your printer if it supports Google Cloud Print, but there’s a bit more to do to get it working. This guide does a good job of explaining your options if you’re on Android.

In a nutshell, you’ll need the Cloud Print app installed on your phone if it isn’t already. More than likely, though, it’s already installed by default and comes stock with your device, but if not, simply download it from the Google Play Store.

After that, there are several ways you can print from your device, either by saving it to a .PDF file to Google Drive and then printing it out, using a brand-specific app for your printer from HP, Epson, etc., or printing directly to your printer if it’s connected to your home network.

It’s certainly not quite as straightforward as AirPrint on iOS, but at least you have some different options to choose from if you’re on Android.

Printing the Old-Fashioned Way

If you have basic printer that doesn’t support AirPrint or Google Cloud Print, then you’ll need to perform a couple of extra steps.

You’ll still need to screenshot the text message conversation, only this time you’ll also need to send those screenshots to your computer. There are a lot of different ways you can do that.

One method that works on both iOS and Android is to simply email the screenshots to yourself. In Android, you can do this by selecting the screenshots in your photos app and hitting the share button. From there, select Gmail and send the screenshots to your own email address. You could also save them to your Dropbox, Google Drive, or other cloud service and access them from your computer.

In iOS, you can select the screenshot(s), hit the share button and select “Mail” from the options. Just like on Android, you can also save them to your Dropbox, Google Drive, or other cloud service and access them from your computer.

There are other methods as well, if you have them enabled. For instance, in iOS you can use AirDrop to quickly send your screenshots to your Mac, or if you have iCloud Photo Library enabled, your screenshots will automatically appear in the Photos app on your Mac, from which you can then drag and drop them into any folder.

Once these screenshots are on your computer, you can print them out like you would with any other document. Personally, I like to open up photos in Photoshop or some other editing software and fine-tune the printing settings for the images, but if you’re not picky, you can simply just send the photos to print without any preparation and they should print out just fine.

Printing important Facebook Messenger conversations is a good idea to ensure you’ll always have a copy. Whether it’s for a court case, or to have as a backup in case those conversation threads get deleted. Regardless of your reason, it is possible to print your Facebook Messenger messages, but it does require jumping through a few hoops.

Launch the Facebook app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device. You’ll land on your Facebook home screen.

Tap the “Menu” icon along the bottom of the screen. The Menu screen appears.

Scroll down to the bottom of the Menu screen, and then tap “Settings and Privacy” to expand that section. Tap “Settings” in that list. The Account Settings screen is displayed.

Scroll down to the Your Facebook Information section, and then tap “Download Your Information.” The Download Your Information screen appears.

Tap “Deselect All” to remove the check mark from all of the options for information you can choose to export from Facebook. Then, scroll down the screen to find Messages, and then tap the radio button to the right of Messages to place a check mark there.

Scroll down to the bottom of this screen. Adjust the Date Range, Format, and Media Quality options accordingly. I’d recommend leaving them set to the defaults, which is to export all of your data in an HTML format at a high quality. Tap “Create File” when you’re done. You’ll receive an email from Facebook letting you know that your request has been received, and then you’ll receive another email when your file is ready to download.

Open a web browser and navigate to Facebook.com and log in to your account if prompted. You’ll land on your Facebook home screen.

Click the drop-down arrow in the upper right corner of the screen to open a drop-down menu, and then click “Settings” in that menu. The General Account Settings screen is displayed.

Click “Your Facebook Information” in the menu on the left side of the screen. The Your Facebook Information window appears on the right side of the screen.

Click “View” to the right of Download Your Information. The Download Your Information screen is displayed.

Click “Available Copies” to see a list of your available Facebook information downloads you’ve requested. Click “Download” next to the information file you want to download. It should say “Messages” beneath the date. The file containing your Facebook Messenger messages is downloaded to your computer.

Extract the downloaded ZIP file to a folder, and then open the folder. You’ll see a Messages folder and an index file. Click to open the index file, which will open in your default web browser to a Your Information screen.

Click “Your Messages” to open a window displaying a list of all of the people you had Facebook Messenger conversations with over the time frame you defined.

Click the conversation thread you want to open. All of the messages in this Facebook Messenger conversation thread that happened over the time frame you defined will be displayed. From here, you can print this Facebook Messenger conversation thread from your web browser, or save it as a PDF. For example, in Google Chrome you would right-click on the conversation and then click “Print” to open the Print dialog box. Within that, you can click your destination to choose your printer or print this document to a PDF. Click “Print” after making your selection.

By SK 10 comments Last updated January 30, 2018

You may want to print your messages for various reasons. You can easily copy and paste individual text messages but please note that there is no direct way to print text message conversations. However, if you like to obtain a copy of all your iPhone/iPad (i)Messages for any purposes, you may use the following methods!

Method 1 For Printing Message App iMessage & SMS Text Conversations

Take a screenshot of the messages you want and print that screenshot!

To capture your iPhone’s or iPad’s screen

• For iPhone X, press and hold both the Volume Up and the Side Button at the same time
• For older model iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch, press your Home button and Power/Lock/Sleep button at the same time
• Or use Assistive Touch on all models to take a screenshot with one hand!

Depending on your sound settings, you might also hear the camera shutter sound when your screen is captured. Then open your Photos app (or camera roll), find the screenshot (look for a screenshots album) and print it.

If you need to print your text messages for legal purposes, it’s best to capture screenshots of all the text messages so they are time-stamped and then print the screenshots. And don’t delete ANY of those messages and make sure you backup your iDevice using iCloud AND iTunes, if possible.

Method 2 For Printing Message App iMessage & SMS Text Conversations

• Locate the text message you want to print
• Press and Hold on a text box until a menu pop-up with the following options: Copy, Speak, More
• Choose More
• Tap the circles next to each conversation thread you want to print
• Once all conversations are selected, tap the forward arrow button at the bottom right of your screen
• Forward the messages to yourself
• A new text arrives that contains all the conversations you want to print
• Press and hold on that new message and select Copy from the pop-up menu
• Open a new app, like Mail, Notes, Reminders, or something similar and paste that copied information
• Print from your chosen app using that app’s printing feature (often in the Share Sheet Button or located in menu options of the Forward Button)
  • Must have a printer that supports AirPrint to print from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch OR an app that supports your printer

How to Print Texts Using Legacy iOS versions

• Locate the message(s) you want to print
• Tap Edit
• Check the circle buttons beside each item
• Tap Forward and send the selected messages to yourself
• When you receive the message you just sent, tap and hold to copy and paste somewhere else (e.g. Notes app) and print

Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.

Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.

In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.

Introduction: The Easiest Ways to Print Text Messages or IMessages Conversations From IPhone

Hello everyone, In this Instructable, I will show you the few easiest ways to print text messages from your iPhone.

So many of the important messages that we receive in our lives now are not coming by letter, or even by email, but instead through text messages. You may not think that you will ever need to print your iPhone text messages and iMessages, but you would be surprised how often it is required. Sometimes people want to use them in court to prove their innocence. Sometimes a text conversation is so much important that you want to print it on a paper and preserve it for a long time. Whatever your reason, follow these easy instructions to print your iphone text conversations.

Step 1: Take a Printout of Your Text Conversation

This is probably the easiest method to print your iPhone text. Here’s what you need to do:

1. First you need to open up your text messages app, and open the message that you want to be able to print.
2. When you have the message that you want to print visible on your screen, press, hold down, and then release the ‘Home’ button and the ‘Wake’ button at the same time exactly. This will create a picture of your screen. If it works properly, you should see a white flash go across the screen, and perhaps hear a click if you have the volume.
3. If you now go to your camera roll, you will be able to see a photo of what your screen was looking like when you pressed both of the buttons down at the same time. This is called a screen shot.

You can now take this photo and email it to yourself and then print it out on your computer.

Step 2: Print Your IPhone Text Messages With the Help of a Third-Party App

I recently found this app called ‘iOS Messages Transfer’ and it can print both iPhone text messages and iMessages conversations. If you have lots of text conversations and you can’t take multiple screenshots then you can try this app. I’m including this app in the Instructable just because this app prints iPhone text messages with all the important information like date & time stamps and all the information about the sender/contact such as his name and mobile number. Here’s how to print text messages with the help of this app:

1. Firstly, you’ll need to download the app, and then install it on your computer.

2. When the program is ready, you should launch it, and connect your iPhone to your computer using its USB cable at the same time. Now all of your iPhone text messages and iMessages should appear in the center of the screen of the program.

3. Click on a particular contact, and then click the ‘Copy’ button. The program will ask you whether you want to choose HTML or PDF format. There is also an option to save them as a JPEG, like the screenshotting method. Any of these file formats will print fine, and once you have chosen, you should click ‘Next’.

4. Now click on ‘Start Copy’ button, and decide where it is that you want the file to be saved on your computer. Once you have chosen, it will start to copy. In the end, open the PDF/HTML/JPEG file on your computer and give the print command.

5. If you want to print directly from the program without worrying about saving the text messages and iMessages somewhere on your computer, then what you need to do is click on the contact in the computer program, click on ‘Print’, but then click ‘Start Print’ button.

Step 3: Email Text Messages/iMessages to Yourself

If you only care about getting the message content into an email and don’t care about the speaker, date and time stamps of the text messages then you can email text messages to yourself and then print them out.

1. Open up the message that you want to print out by turning on your iPhone, and going to the text messages and iMessages app. You should then open up the messages from the contact that you want to print.
2. Now you need to copy the text messages and iMessages, and you can do this by tapping on the ‘Copy’ button, or holding down your finger on the message until Copy/More appears.
3. Then you need to go to your email app, and open up a new email. Input your own email address into the send bar.
4. In the section where you write the message, you need to paste what you copied from your text messages and iMessages. Then all you have to do next is click on ‘Send’
5. Turn on your computer, and open up your emails to see the new message there that contains all of your text messages and iMessages.

You can now open up a program such as MS Word, paste the text messages and iMessages there, and print them directly off.

I hope you find this Instructable useful.

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It’s a bit surprising, really, that it’s not easier to export and save entire iPhone text message conversations or at least large portions of a chat.

With a quick workaround, however, you can indeed save entire text conversations had on your iPhone, and you can then forward them as an iMessage or even email them to yourself.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

How to save an entire text conversation on your iPhone

1. Open the text chain you wish to preserve and hold a finger down on one of the texts in the conversation.

2. Tap the “More…” option when it appears, then tap the circle to the left of each text and image you want to save.

3. Tap on the curved arrow at the bottom right corner of the screen, then enter the phone number or email address that you wish to send the text the conversation to.

4. You can also hold a finger down on the new text message and tap “Copy” to copy it for pasting elsewhere on your iPhone, such as into an email or a note.

Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech:

How to save audio messages on your iPhone and change your settings so audio messages stop deleting after 2 minutes

‘Why is my iPhone not sending messages?’: How to troubleshoot iPhone messaging issues

How to make a new, additional Memoji on your iPhone, and send a variety of customized, moving emojis

How to delete messages from your Apple Watch, even if your iPhone isn’t nearby

Insider Inc. receives a commission when you buy through our links.

Whether you wish to print special messages from a loved one, or whether you need to print a conversation for evidence in a court case – the ability to print SMS conversations from your Android phone is a great feature to have. Droid Transfer can help you do this with ease and will also save and print any emojis and images within the conversations, as well as dates and times the messages were sent and received.

Visit our TouchCopy page if you need to print iPhone text messages instead.

Summary

Let’s see how we can print messages from an Android device.

1. Download and install Droid Transfer and connect your Android device and your PC using either a WiFi or a USB connection.
2. Choose the “Messages” tab from the feature list.
3. Select a conversation you wish to print.
4. Print the whole conversation, or choose dates between which you wish to print by clicking on “Set Date Range” in Droid Transfer.
5. Click on Print and confirm which printer you wish to use.

See it in action

Detailed Information

As well as saving Android messages, Droid Transfer also gives you the ability to print messages.

To do this, connect your Android device with Droid Transfer on your computer. If you require help doing this, please check out our Droid Transfer quick start guide.

Once you are set up, open the “Messages” tab from the feature list on the left side of the program.

Now you can select which messages you would like to print. To do this, click a contact to highlight them in the list. To select multiple contact conversations, use the ctrl-click combination.

If you only require certain messages, or messages between certain dates, you can use the “Set Dates” function to narrow down the printed conversation.

Once you’ve made your selection, just hit “Print”! You will be presented with your default print settings and you can choose which printer you wish to print the conversations on.

ThereВ are plenty of reasons you mightВ wantВ to print yourВ iPhone text messages. Maybe it’s for work, maybe it’s for a court case, or maybe you want to save a copy of some important conversations. Whatever your purpose is, we’re going to introduce a couple of practical ways to print text messages from iPhone. These include using a third-party program, using a quick screen of the conversation you want to print, or using email. Apply any one of them as your solution.

Part 1. How to Print Text Messages from iPhone with EaseUS MobiMover

Works on:В iPhone 12/11 Pro Max/11 Pro/11/X/8/7/6 plus/6/5 with latest iOS 13.1/13 and older iOS systems.

If you usually struggle to print messages or other data from your iPhone/iPad, there is an option that might work better for you. You can access your text messages from your computer and then print them from there. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use this iPhone transfer software – EaseUS MobiMover.

With it, you can transfer all or specific text messages from the iPhone to a computer in text format and then print them out easily. Apart from that, this program can also be utilized to backup iOS devices, download videos, manage WhatsApp data, etc.

Now let’s look at how to back up iPhone messages to the computer with EaseUS MobiMover and then print out text messages from iPhone.

Step 1.В Connect your iPhone to your Mac and launch EaseUS MobiMover. Tap “Trust” on your iPhone screen to trust this Mac. Choose “Phone to Mac” and click “Next.”

Step 2. Select the category/categories you’d like to export from iPhone to your Mac. Since you want to save iPhone messages to your Mac, tick the “Messages” category. You can change the default path to other locations. Click “Transfer”.

Step 3.В Wait for the transfer process to finish. The messages will be saved as an HTML file on your Mac. Thus, you can view the details with a browser whenever you want.

Part 2. How to Print Text Messages from iPhone via Email

If using a third-party tool is not what you want, another option is to use email. But note that this won’t contain the date/time of messages. Besides, email only allows you to send one message each time. If you want to send messages in batches, you have to repeat the operation repeatedly, which might be time- and energy-consuming. If you don’t mind spending time, go ahead to use email. Otherwise, go back to use Method 1.

To print messages from the iPhone via Email, you can:

Step 1. Go to the Message app on your iPhone, and choose the conversation you want to print.

Step 2. Tap and hold the message until you see a “Copy/More” dialogue. Tap the “Copy” option to copy the contents of the text to the clipboard.

Step 3. Now open the Mail app on your iOS device and draft a new email. Paste the copied text into the New Message filed, input your email address, and then tap “Send.”

Step 4. Access your Email Account from your computer and then print out the email text, which contains your text messages.

Part 3. How to Print Text Messages from iPhone by Taking Screenshots

The screenshot approach is probably the easiest way to print text messages. It allows you to save all important details, including the data, time, and contact info. If this is exactly what you want, do it by following the below steps. But note that the pictures might not be very clear when they are printed out.

Step 1. Open the text message that you want to print.

Step 2. Press the Side Button and Volume Up button ( it is the Home button on iPhone with Touch ID), then quickly release both buttons. (After that, a thumbnail temporarily appears in the lower-left corner of your screen, you can tap it to edit your screenshot or swipe left to dismiss it)

Step 3. Go to the “Photos” app on your iPhone to view your screenshots. You can select these images and send them directly to a printer. Or you can also transfer photos to a computer to print them out.

Part 4. How to Print Text Messages for Court

If you want to print text messages from your iPhone as evidence, you’d better consult a lawyer for the information it should contain. For most legal matters, the following details should be visible in a text message file:

• The date and time of the message
• The real contact Info of both the sender and receiver, it’s a phone number for SMS or an email address for MMS

Based on that, we suggest you take screenshots for each conversation you’d like to print. In this way, you can save almost all important information like date, time, and contact info.

Conclusion

Whatever your motivation for printing messages, we hope the above-introduced practical methods can help you do it. Of all approaches, using EaseUS MobiMover is undoubtedly the easiest one since it has the ability to send all or specific text messages from your iPhone to your computer in text format. But if you don’t want to install any third-party software on your computer, try another two approaches instead.

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Make it easy to transfer data to or from your iPhone/iPad.

Have you ever wanted to keep your text messages forever, in a physical form, but didn’t know how to? Well, let us show you how to get past screenshots and print text messages from Android devices! There are many ways you could do this, from the downright method of copy-pasting your messages into a Word document to third-party apps that can take the work out of this. Curious? Let’s see what this is all about!

Method 1: How to Print Text Messages on Android with Google Docs

Google Docs is an alternative for the Microsoft Office Word app that is part of the Google Suite. You can use any text editor for this method, but for the purpose of this tutorial, we’re going to show you Google Docs.

If you don’t already have the app on your phone, you can download it by clicking the button below.

Step 1: Copy-Paste Your Text Messages

All you have to do is long-press the text messages you wish to print, select copy from the options shown, then open Google Docs and paste your texts into a new file.

Step 2: Connect Your Android to a Printer

This is quite intuitive. In order to print from your Android device, you have to connect it to a printer. This is usually done through Bluetooth or Wi-fi. If you want to know more about this, you should check out our article about How to Print from Your Android Phone.

Step 3: Print Your Document!

Now, all you have to do is click on the three-dotted menu on the right corner of the screen, tap Share & export, and then Print.

Method 2: How to Print Text Messages with Screenshots

This method requires a little bit less work than copy-pasting, but it still takes a little bit of time.

Step 1: Take a Screenshot of the Text Messages

Go to your text messages and take a screenshot of the ones that you want to print. If you want to know more about Android Screenshots, we recommend you read our article “Android Screenshot – All You Need to Know“.

Step 2: Connect Your Android to a Printer

This is exactly the same as the step from the first method.

Print Your Screenshots!

You have 2 options here: you can either print your screenshots directly as pictures, or you can paste them into a text editor and follow the steps from the first method.

Method 3: How to Print Text Messages on Android with Third-Party Apps

This is perhaps the easiest method there is for printing text messages on Android. We’re going to show you a few apps that can help you with this.

1. Droid Transfer

This app is mainly focused on connecting your Android device to your PC and transfer all your files on your computer. It has a separate section for messages, where you can directly print them for your computer, without having to do any work. It has both a free version and a paid one, so you should check it out first before buying the premium one.

2. Samsung Messages Backup

Even though this app is made primarily for Samsung devices, it is compatible with other Android smartphones. It is designed to help you backup your messages on your personal computer. From the app, you can export your text messages in the compatible formats, than can be later on printed out.

Print Text Messages on Android – Go Beyond Screenshots

For whatever reason you want to print out your text messages, there are many ways to do this. We hope our methods were helpful to you, whether you chose the more time-consuming ones like screenshots or copy-pasting, or decided to go with a third-party app.

So what method did you try? What was your experience? Let us know in the comments down below!

If you ever wish to download the complete record of all messages sent and received by your account, do the following:

1. In the main navigation menu, click Message Board.
2. From the lefthand menu, select the All Correspondence folder. This folder contains all of the messages from the Inbox and Sent Messages folders.
   1. By default, your messages will be ordered based on the date they were sent or received, with your most recent messages at the top of the list. To reverse the order and start with your oldest messages, click the Date header. Once clicked, a carrot next to this header will indicate the order in which your messages are being displayed.
3. Click the Print button at the top of the page.
4. A Message Report window will appear. You will notice that under Messages, the option for All in Folder is selected. This means all of the messages in this folder will be included in your report.

   Also in this window under Options, use the checkboxes to select:

   1. Whether you’d like to include replies to any messages in your report.
   2. Whether you’d like to display one message per page in your report.
5. Click Generate Report. A pop-up message will display informing you that your report will be ready shortly and will be accessible in your System Messages folder.
6. Go to your System Messages folder and look for a new message titled Report Generated. Open this message and click the link within it to access your report.
7. Follow the prompts from your internet browser to save your message report as a PDF or to print.