TextExhibits

Exporting and printing

How to convert an SMS Backup & Restore XML file to PDF

Last reviewed · 2 official sources cited below

SMS Backup & Restore (by SyncTech) saves an Android phone’s texts to an XML file. The XML is complete but unreadable as-is. Here’s how to turn it into a document a judge can read.

What’s inside the XML

SyncTech documents the format in Fields in XML backup files. The parts that matter for court:

Field Meaning (per SyncTech)
address The other party’s phone number. Group MMS lists every participant joined with ~
date When the message was received, in milliseconds since 1 Jan 1970 (UTC)
type (SMS) / msg_box (MMS) 1 = Received, 2 = Sent, 3 = Draft, 4 = Outbox, 5 = Failed
body The SMS text
contact_name Optional, only if “Add contact names” was on; (Unknown) if not a saved contact
<part ct="image/jpeg" data="…"> MMS attachments, base64-encoded, absent if media backup was off

Convert it

  1. Open the .xml in TextExhibits. Large backups with photos can be hundreds of MB; the file is read locally, so it depends on your computer’s memory, not your upload speed.
  2. Pick the conversation. A backup usually contains every thread on the phone.
  3. Choose the time zone to display. Because the backup stores exact instants, each message is shown with its UTC offset, for example 2024-03-09 11:00:00 UTC-05:00, and daylight-saving changes are handled.
  4. Drafts, outbox and failed messages are left out and counted in a note, because they were never sent or received.
  5. Optionally redact phone numbers, add the case caption and exhibit label, and download.

Note on “date” vs “date_sent”

SyncTech notes that date_sent “can differ from date, which is when it was received”. TextExhibits uses date for ordering and display, so incoming messages are shown at the time they reached the phone. If a sent-time dispute matters to your case, raise it with your lawyer; the XML keeps both values.

The free viewer apps

SyncTech also points to ways of viewing backups on a computer. TextExhibits focuses on producing a court-style PDF: cover page, SHA-256 of the backup file, “Page X of Y”, Bates numbers and a hash certificate.

Make the PDF in your browser

Open a WhatsApp export, SMS Backup & Restore XML or iMazing CSV and get a page-numbered transcript with the source file’s SHA-256 fingerprint. Nothing is uploaded.

Open TextExhibits

Sources

  1. SyncTech — SMS Backup & Restore (features, price)
  2. SyncTech — Fields in SMS Backup & Restore XML backup files

Sources were opened and checked on 2026-10-17. Laws and rules change; always read the current version.