Common questions

No. Backups, backups, search, and exports all happen on your own computer. The only content that ever leaves it is the single conversation you explicitly send when you use the optional AI Summary feature, and you confirm that each time. Signing in sends your email address and an anonymous computer identifier, never your messages. The details are in our Privacy Policy.

No. Only the one conversation you explicitly confirm is sent, through Text2Store's own service, to Google Gemini. Neither stores or logs the message content: our service counts usage only, and Google does not use it to train models or retain it after answering. See the full data flow in the AI Summary guide.

On a Mac, no. On Windows, Text2Store needs Apple's device support software: if it isn't on your PC, the app guides you to the free Apple Devices app in the Microsoft Store (iTunes works too). You never need to open either one.

It backs up iPhones and iPads. The app runs on Apple silicon Macs (M1 or later) and 64-bit Windows 10 or later. There is no Android version.

Back up your messages from any number of iPhones and iPads, preview each backup (contacts, message counts, date ranges), read the 3 most recent messages of every conversation, and search across every backup at once: matches show you where they are. You can export those 3 messages to PDF, CSV or text too, so you can see the real output on your own data. Buying once unlocks every message, full search results, attachments, RSMF and the verified export, printing, and AI summaries; see pricing.

Yes, fully. If your device has backup encryption turned on, Text2Store asks for the backup password you set on the device, keeps it in memory only for the session, and stores the backup encrypted on disk. More in the encrypted backups guide.

Yes, optionally. When you create the export you can tick a box to encrypt the .zip with AES-256; it is off by default. Worth knowing first: the password cannot be recovered if it is lost, on a Mac it opens by double-clicking but on Windows your recipient needs 7-Zip (File Explorer can list the files but not extract them) (the command-line unzip can't open it at all and gives an empty folder with no error), and many mail providers block password-protected attachments. Encryption stops people reading it; the checksums and timestamp are what prove it was not altered, and they work the same either way. Details in the verified export guide.

An optional checkbox on the backup dialog, on by default. Text2Store gets an independent, trusted timestamp from DigiCert the moment the backup is made, so you can later prove its contents existed unchanged from that day, not just from whenever you happen to export something. It needs internet only at that instant, and because certification can't be added after the fact, the only way to get one is to make a fresh backup with the box checked. See the certified backups guide.

If a deleted message is still inside the phone's backup, for example in Recently Deleted, the backup keeps it and shows it under the Deleted filter. It cannot recover anything the phone itself no longer holds, so the best protection is backing up regularly.

Yes. WhatsApp chats ride inside your iPhone's backup, and Text2Store reads them from the same backup: conversations, groups, photos, and reactions including who reacted. They appear in their own WhatsApp tab beside Apple Messages, with the same search and the same exports (PDF, CSV, plain text, RSMF, and verified export). You need an up-to-date Text2Store and a backup made with it; backups created by older versions did not include WhatsApp data, so update, then make a fresh backup to see your chats. It reads WhatsApp from iPhone backups only; there is no Android version. More in the WhatsApp guide.

No. When a WhatsApp message is deleted for everyone, WhatsApp removes it from the phone itself, so it is not in any backup for Text2Store to keep. That differs from Apple Messages, where deleted texts often survive in a backup for a while. WhatsApp also stores only the current text of an edited message, so earlier wording cannot be shown. The protection is the same either way: back up regularly, and each backup keeps what the phone still had that day.

Every iPhone, iPad, and computer you own. There are no per-device fees and no device limits within your own household or organization.

Backing up and searching are free forever, on every device you own, and your backups stay on your disk in files you own. The free version shows the 3 most recent messages of each conversation and exports them to PDF, CSV or text, so you can see the real thing on your own data. Buying once opens every message, RSMF and the verified export, attachments, and AI summaries.

The first backup copies everything, so it depends on how much is on the device; the app shows a time estimate before you start. Every backup after that copies only what changed and is usually much quicker.

No. The All backups view is the default: Text2Store merges every backup of a device into one searchable timeline, deduplicated so nothing shows twice. Think of it like Time Machine for your messages, you scroll back through your whole history at once, and a message you've since deleted from your phone stays there as long as any backup captured it. Each backup is still its own dated backup on disk, so nothing is ever overwritten; the merged view just reads across all of them.

Reset that device's sync cache. Text2Store keeps a working copy of each device and syncs into it every time; on rare occasions that copy gets into a bad state and every backup then stalls or fails. Connect the device, click the broom (Reset) icon in its row, and confirm. It deletes only the working copy, and the next backup rebuilds it from scratch, so it takes about as long as a first backup. Your saved backups are not affected. Full steps in the reset a stuck backup guide.