Hello Bob,

I don’t know of an existing software that can take texts from a phone.  However, Smokeball does have Communicate.  This allows your client to download a free app for iPhone or Android phones that will allow them to text you from their phone using our Communicate App.  This means all texts through Communicate will be saved to the matter, and the time you spend reading and responding to those messages is tracked.  Hopefully this helps!.

If it is an iPhone, I have been using iMazing. The extraction time can be a few minutes to a few hours depending on how much you are extracting. We use it to copy the text messages and then upload the files into Smokeball.

This is great information to have!  Thank you so much for sharing Heather!

You should be able email it to yourself then save it into the matter as a PDF

@Bob_BE I have used this product with success repeatedly: "Wondershare] TUNESGO - Must-Have Phone Manager for Android and iPhone.

The “Suite” version includes both iOS and Android as well as detailed instructions for making phones able to accept connections from the software. Downloads or exports can be by individual contacts and information types. For example, you can export call log, messages, pictures, etc.

If you are exporting for evidentiary purposes keep in mind the rules of evidence such as best evidence, foundation, authentication etc. For example, the attorney may not be the best staff member to plug in the phone, select the data, and export it as the attorney is then a necessary witness for foundation and authentication. The text messages exported will be in a visual text message format that looks like the one on your screen. This is actually a re-working of the message data on your phone by the Tunes Go software to present the XML message data in a graphically familiar format. So do not think those are the original messages per se. Rather they are a copy or transformed copy of them.