How to Backup/Sync iPhone Messages to PC

If you backup messages to PC, you will be able to easily restore your old iPhone or sync the new one without losing all your conversations. Let's see how to backup/sync messages from iPhone to computer.

Updated Dec 14,2017 | by Niko

If you backup messages to PC, you will be able to easily restore your old iPhone or sync the new one without losing all your conversations. However, when you try to extract your iPhone messages and backup those messages to your computer, then you’ll realize there is no direct way.

Apple allows you to backup messages, actually. You can take advantages of iCloud or iTunes to backup your iPhone messages. It is worth mentioning that neither of the two backup methods can just get your text messages or iMessage back onto your iPhone properly. It means you have to wipe your iPhone, and restore messages, along with contacts, photos, apps and etc. from iTunes or iCloud backup.

iCloud provides you with a way to wirelessly backup messages as well as other contents & files directly to iCloud. To enable iCloud backup on iOS devices, you go to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup. While, if you want to backup messages to PC, iTunes will be an option. No matter what, let’s see how to backup messages using iTunes.

How to Backup iPhone Messages to PC via iTunes

If you use iTunes to backup messages from iPhone to PC, it will backup everything on your iPhone automatically. Here are the steps:

1. Connect your iPhone to PC, and open iTunes

2. Click to open the device settings menu

3. Choose “This computer” and click “Back Up Now”

iTunes backup.png

When you want to sync the messages or your old or new iPhone, just connect the iPhone and choose “Restore Backup…”. In addition to iPhone messages, apps, contacts, memos and others will be synced to the device. Besides, iTunes method will not allow you to backup messages to PC in a viewable format.

What’s more, you can use third-party software and tools to backup/sync messages from iPhone to PC. Compared to iTunes or iCloud, those third-party software and tools are much easier and more convenient to use. In the following, we list several tools that help you backup messages to PC.

iExplorer: using iExplorer, you can keep all your messages to computer easily. This tool allows you to export iPhone messages, along with images and all attachments to multiple different formats, including PDF, CSV and TXT.

CopyTrans Contacts: it makes quite simple to backup your text messages and iMessages, including all photo, video and contact file attachments to computer in PDF, CSV, text, HTML, Word and Excel. With CopyTrans Contacts, you can backup, read, share and print your iPhone messages on PC.

iBackup Viewer: it lets you extract text messages as well iMessage from iPhone, iTunes backups, and it will display all the conversations in the iOS-styled way. You can backup messages to PC in PDF files or HTML format.

If you want to backup other contents like photos, videos, contacts, voice memos, books and etc., we would like to recommend IOTransfer. In addition to 1-click transfer and backup feature, the newly released IOTransfer can work as phone cleaner and online video downloader. It not only helps you clean up iPhone for more space, but also downloads videos from YouTube, Instagram and other popular video sharing websites to PC and iOS devices.