How to Backup and Restore SMS on Android/iOS/Windows/Mac

Android apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Chat-on, etc have replaced the traditional mobile SMS over the years. But courtesy demands where to WhatsApp, Facebook, and even use Skype messenger over SMS.

 This means that the traditional network courier SMS is still useful. However, here in this post, we are going to discuss extensively “SMS BACKUP and RESTORE”. The way you back up & restore WhatsApp messages you can also back up your SMS and restore them the same way.

There is a way to back up SMS, call logs, and phone contacts using Android apps. At the same time, you can also back up SMS and restore it without an Android app and without using a PC.

There are different approaches to SMS backup & restore! The common ones that we will discuss in this post will be how to backup SMS to Gmail and restore it to your phone when you need it, how to backup SMS to a computer and restore it and how to backup SMS and restore it on iOS to a computer.

SMS Backup And Restore Overview

This idea is basic.

No special technical know-how is required to back up your Android phone SMS and restore it later when needed.

The idea to back up your SMS can be for any reason. For instance, when you format or factory reset your Android phone, you will lose everything you have on the phone including your phone contacts, SMS, MMS, logins, and the rest of them.

Another worse scenario is when you misplace your phone or a pickpocket do away with your phone, you will be able to restore the backup files to your new phone.

What you will learn here in this post is how to backup SMS and restore it without an app, and how to do SMS backup & SMS restore on iOS and Android phones.

At least, either of these approaches will work perfectly for you and you will be able to revive both your old SMS and new SMS to keep your memory fresh about them.

How to Backup and Restore SMS on Android without Android App

Here we will make use of the Gmail advanced feature to back up your Android SMS, call logs, and MMS automatically to your Gmail account. If you don’t have a valid Gmail account, please follow “how to create Gmail account” to create a new account for the sake of this assignment, it takes less than 8 minutes to achieve.

If you have successfully created your Gmail account we can proceed to SMS backup and restore below. And if you already have a valid Gmail account you can skip the above direction.

• Fire up your Android app menu, locate the Backup and Restore icon in the list of apps and click on it
• There you can back up your data and apps. Click  on personal data in the backup section
• Your Android phone will load all your data including contacts, messages, pictures, Calendars, and music. And Since we are interested in messages tick only messages.

• Take a look at the bottom of the page and click on Backup to SD

• Now, create a name for your SMS backup and hit the OK button to create your SMS backup file on your Android phone MicroSD.

• If your SMS is successfully backed up you should see a success message page like the one below.

Note: This process only backs up and restores SMS without an app on Android phones manually as it cannot be done in a regular interval automatically. You always need to do a backup of your SMS manually yourself against the auto-backup feature which is available in most backup Android apps

• To restore your SMS backup, navigate your backup page to the left and click on your SMS backup file name, and select backup on the next page.

Also, restore a recent backup of your file to have a complete SMS backup and restore for reference purposes.

How to do SMS Backup and Restore to Computer

The above tutorial will only let you back up phone SMS to our SD card manually and restore it to your device. This means it makes it very easy to have your SMS stored in more than one phone. Also, after you have successfully backed up your device SMS you can transfer it to your computer and view it on it. While we are not concerned about how to view phone SMS backed up on PC, here we will walk you through how to create a backup of your phone SMS on your computer.

• Firstly, download and install the Tunego computer program on the computer you want to backup your phone messages to and connect your phone to your computer or laptop via USB.

Make sure to enable debugging on your phone.

Note: You can only use USB to transfer phone messages to your computer to inform of backup.

• Navigate to the information section in the tunesgo program and select SMS. All messages present on the connected phone will be displayed. Then select the list of messages you want to back up [You can preview them if you want to].

• On your tunesgo screen, locate and click on Export to export all selected SMS on your phone to your PC as a backup copy.

This is the best way to backup your phone SMS to your computer. It is better to do this when you still have your phone in a working condition rather than when you will have to format it just to see that all your messages are gone on it.

Once you have successfully done a backup of your phone SMS, you can view them on a computer and at the same time, restore it to your phone when you need it. Below we will take a look at how to restore backed-up SMS from your computer to your Android phone.

Restore Backup: Do SMS Restore to your Android from Computer

SMS backup is very important to have a copy of your phone messages on the device you have direct access to. If you followed the guide above to create an SMS backup on your phone, here is how to do a restore of the backup files back to your phone or another chosen phone.

Note: I want to believe you have not uninstalled the tunesgo program you installed above and if you have uninstalled it kindly go back to reinstall it again.

• Launch tunesgo program on your computer and connect your smartphone to it via a USB cable. Don’t forget to enable debugging before connecting it.
• Softly click on the information and select SMS from the drop menu. There you will see import and export options. Then click on import [Make sure your phone is connected via USB]

Note: Your SMS file will be created in vCard format and not .txt, doc, docs, or pdf.

• A new pop-up will come up. Navigate through it and select your SMS backup from where it’s stored and click on the open tab to import it.

Wait patiently for the importation to complete before disconnecting your phone. Other than doing an SMS back and restoring your smartphone and Windows using tunesgo, you can also transfer SMS between phones using this program. It is as easy as just connecting two devices to your computer and fire up tunesgo program to do SMSs transfer between phone “A” and phone “B” without a backup file.

How to Do SMS Backup and Restore on Mac

The above procedure is to backup SMS from your phone to your computer. And also, transfer of backed up SMSs from your windows computer back to your phone. However, if you have a computer running Mac OS, you will love to backup your phone SMS to your Mac computer kindly follow the procedure below.

Download and install Syncios Data Transfer program for your Mac computer. Then, after you have successfully installed the program connect your Android or iOS device to your Mac computer and launch the program.

Once the program is fired up click on Backup Your Phone as shown in the image below.

Note: Make sure to put your smartphone into debugging mode.

Now, the on-screen shows you how to back up your device. But for a handy procedure, select all the messages you want to back up from your iOS or Android to your Mac computer. To the left panel, select the location you want to save your backup file on your Mac computer. After you have successfully selected the list of SMS you want to back, click the start copy button to start copying your SMS from your phone to your Mac device.

Note: You can also backup contacts, call logs, apps, videos, Music, Pictures, and even your entire phone to your Mac using this approach.

This is the exact approach you need to back up SMS on your phone to your Mac computer. Next, you may want to think of how to restore SMS backup from a Mac to either an iOS or Android phone. Stay tuned, we are not done yet!

SMS Backup and Restore: Restore Backup SMS from Mac to Phone

At one point or the other, you may choose to restore back the SMS you backed up from your phone to your Mac computer. That is not a big deal. All you need to do is connect your phone (Android or iOS) to your Mac computer, enable debugging, and do a restore to your phone.

Easy right?

Following the procedure below you will be able to do SMS restore from your previous backup to your phone. Note that you can transfer the SMS to another phone other than the parent phone. You can also transfer SMS from one phone to another using this program on your Mac computer.

Let’s ride…

Fire up the Sync program you installed on your Mac above and connect your phone to your computer. Once you launch the program, you will see restore under the backup phone section. There you will see restore from iCloud, restore from PC, restore from iTunes. And since our backup is right on our computer select to restore from PC.

Once you click on restore from PC a new window will pop up. Navigate the page and search for your SMS backup file from the saved location. Once found, double-click on it or click on it once and click on the open tab to import your SMS from your Mac computer to your iOS or Android phone.

If this is done correctly you should have a copy of your backed-up SMS on your Android phone inbox. Also, you can as well restore call logs, DCIM, pictures, music, videos, apps, and even calendars. With sync SMS backup and restore programs for Mac and Windows, there won’t be any reason for you to feel bad when you misplace your phone or format your phone because of your old and new messages. All SMS and other files are backed up!

SMS Backup and Restore on iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod)

This section is mainly for iOS users. Just the way you can backup Android phone files you can also backup iOS device files to either your Windows or Mac computer. However, here we’ll walk you through an exceptional way to back up SMS on your iOS and restore it when needed.

• Download and install the iExplorer 4.1.8 version on your Windows computer or Mac computer. Connect your iOS device to your PC in debugging mode.
• Launch iExplorer from your computer. Click to select data from the list of options on the program interface and select messages (SMS) afterwards.

• Now, your iExplorer will load all the available SMS on your iOS device (iPhone/iPad/iPod). Select from the list all messages you want to back up. And if it is the entire message just select all conversation.

• Once you have selected all the messages, another option to export will pop up. You can either choose to export SMS in PDF, doc., CSV, .txt, or in all formats. In this case, we selected pdf as our backup file format.

iExplorer will export all selected messages from your iOS device to your Mac or Windows computer and you are good to go. This technique is an exceptional way to back up SMS on iOS to Mac and computer. You can also transfer messages from phone “A” to phone “B” without their backups.

Other things you can do with iExplorer other than the normal SMS backup and restore include restoring an iOS backup from iCloud to your device and also restoring a backup from iTunes.

SMS Backup and Restore on Android using the App

Although there is no specific feature to backup SMS on Android phones rather a feature to backup the entire phone. This means when you back up your Android phone you invariably backed up your phone SMS alongside. Android phone backup option gives way to only backup SMS & restore it to your device manually.

That is the demerit of the feature… It couldn’t back up SMS automatically. However, in search of ways to back up SMS & restore it, we have found the best way that works for all Android phone versions. Here in this post, you will learn how to engage in SMS backup and restore automatically using SMS backup+ plus.

Firstly, visit the Google Play Store on your Android phone and search for SMS backup & restore or download directly from here. Meanwhile, if you are reading this post on your computer you can install the Android app directly from your PC to your Android phone using this guide.

There are many other Android apps to backup SMS, call logs, Calendar, Notes, Documents, and other files on Android phones to Gmail automatically but we decided to go with SMS Backup Plus because it can do an SMS backup for your Android phone automatically.