[android] Export SMSs

[Jawloms]

Hiya,

 

I have a phone which I need to get a very lengthy text conversation off in to a text document or something. In the past we've done screenshots, but this time the conversation is just way too long. All the software I can find which claims to be able to do it costs money. It's Android, there must be a simple way of doing it which I'm missing! Please help....

 

Stuart

[Edu-IT]

Multiple screenshots?

[Jawloms]

I'm talking looooooooooong. We'd need about 50 screenshots.

[jthompson]

The only thing that comes to mind for me is SMS Backup+ (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zegoggles.smssync&hl=en_US), which will back up SMS to a Gmail account as conversations. By default it will want to back up all SMS messages, but you can be selective about which contact(s) it backs up, so that you can limit it to the ones you need. Once in Gmail, the conversation(s) can be printed off like any email thread.

 

Might be a bit of a task to get set up, but compare that to taking and organising all those screenshots.

[Arthur]

@jthompson's suggestion is probably going to be the best option, but if you need to take lots of screenshots you may find it quicker to use the ADB script below. This will capture whatever is on the screen of the Android device, transfer it to your computer and rename it with the date/time. All you need to do is scroll through each message and run the script every time you need a screenshot.

 

@echo off & setlocal ENABLEEXTENSIONS
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set SCRIPTDIR=%~dp0
set SCRIPTDIR=%SCRIPTDIR:~0,-1%

call :GetDate y m d
call :GetTime h n s t

:: Download and extract the Android platform tools to the same folder as the script.
:: https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools-latest-windows.zip

"%SCRIPTDIR%\adb.exe" shell screencap -p /sdcard/screenshot.png
"%SCRIPTDIR%\adb.exe" pull /sdcard/screenshot.png
"%SCRIPTDIR%\adb.exe" shell rm /sdcard/screenshot.png

ren "%SCRIPTDIR%\Screenshot.png" "Screenshot_%y%-%m%-%d%-%h%.%n%.%s%.png"

goto :EOF

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:GetDate yy mm dd
::
:: Func: Loads local system date components into args 1 to 3.
::       For NT4/2000/XP/2003.
::
:: Args: %1 var to receive year, 4 digits (by ref)
::       %2 var to receive month, 2 digits, 01 to 12 (by ref)
::       %3 Var to receive day of month, 2 digits, 01 to 31 (by ref)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
setlocal ENABLEEXTENSIONS
set t=2&if "%date%z" LSS "A" set t=1
for /f "skip=1 tokens=2-4 delims=(-)" %%a in ('echo/^|date') do (
 for /f "tokens=%t%-4 delims=.-/ " %%d in ('date/t') do (
   set %%a=%%d&set %%b=%%e&set %%c=%%f))
endlocal&set %1=%yy%&set %2=%mm%&set %3=%dd%&goto :EOF
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:GetTime hh nn ss tt
::
:: Func: Loads local system time components into args 1 to 4.
::       For NT4/2000/XP/2003
::
:: Args: %1 Var to receive hours, 2 digits, 00 to 23 (by ref)
::       %2 Var to receive minutes, 2 digits, 00 to 59 (by ref)
::       %3 Var to receive seconds, 2 digits, 00 to 59 (by ref)
::       %4 Var to receive centiseconds, 2 digits, 00 to 99 (by ref)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
setlocal ENABLEEXTENSIONS
for /f "tokens=5-8 delims=:,. " %%a in ('echo/^|time') do (
 set hh=%%a&set nn=%%b&set ss=%%c&set cs=%%d)
if 1%hh% LSS 20 set hh=0%hh%
endlocal&set %1=%hh%&set %2=%nn%&set %3=%ss%&set %4=%cs%&goto :EOF
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

Another way to do it would be to record a video of the screen while you go through the text messages.