How to save text messages
from a loved one.
To save messages from a loved one, first stop anything deleting them (on an iPhone, set Keep Messages to Forever), then make copies you control: export WhatsApp chats, screenshot or back up texts, and save voice messages as files. Keep those copies in at least two places, because a phone backup that stops updating can be deleted.
Start with your own phone. The messages they sent you are already on it, so you don’t need their phone or their passwords to keep their words. Check WhatsApp as well as Messages: Ofcom found that 90% of UK online adults used WhatsApp in 2025, and on an average day in May 2025, 74% did.
Their messages are already on your phone. Make sure they don’t only live there.
What can delete a loved one’s messages?
Rarely one big event. Usually a setting, or time. These are the things to check first:
Auto-delete settings. On an iPhone, Keep Messages can be set to 30 days or 1 year, and audio messages expire 2 minutes after they’re played unless you keep them. Check both today.
Syncing. With Messages in iCloud turned on, deleting a message or conversation on your iPhone deletes it from every device where Messages in iCloud is on.
A phone nobody uses. Google erases an Android phone’s backed-up data, apart from photos and videos in Google Photos, after 57 days without use. Apple can delete an iPhone’s iCloud backups if it hasn’t backed up for 180 days.
Account rules. Apple’s iCloud terms say that, outside its Digital Legacy scheme, rights to an account end at death, and it may be deleted once Apple receives a death certificate. Google can delete an account that has been inactive for two years.
Clearing out a phone. Resetting, selling or recycling a phone wipes what’s on it, so save what matters before anyone does.
How do you save iPhone texts and iMessages?
Set Keep Messages to Forever.
Go to Settings, tap Apps, then Messages. Scroll down, tap Keep Messages (below Message History) and choose Forever.
Keep their audio messages.
In the same settings, tap Expire (below Audio Messages) and choose Never. For each one that matters, touch and hold it, then tap Save to Voice Memos.
Screenshot the messages that matter.
A screenshot keeps the words, the time and their way of writing, and it’s an ordinary image you can copy anywhere.
Check Recently Deleted.
If something has gone, tap the Filter button in the conversation list, then Recently Deleted, select the conversation and tap Recover. Apple keeps deleted messages there for up to 30 days.
If brothers, sisters or a parent were in the same conversations, ask them to do the same. Apple notes that deleting and recovering only affects your own devices: you can’t recover messages on anyone else’s.
How do you save texts on Android?
Android backs up your texts automatically, but that backup lives in your Google Account for restoring a phone, and it doesn’t last forever. Make a copy of your own as well.
Check the backup is on. Android Help says your phone backs up SMS and MMS messages to your Google Account automatically, and RCS messages when you use Google Messages. To back up now, open Settings, tap Google, then All services, then Backup, then Back up now. Menus vary between phones.
Save a copy you control. An app such as SMS Backup & Restore, from SyncTech, saves SMS and MMS messages and call logs as an XML file, on the phone or in Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive. The basic version is free.
Screenshot the ones that matter. Just as on an iPhone, a screenshot keeps their words exactly as they appeared on screen.
How do you export a WhatsApp chat?
WhatsApp’s Export chat option turns a conversation into a text file you can email to yourself or save. Its help centre gives these steps:
On Android.
Open the chat, tap More options, then More, then Export chat, and choose Include media or Without media.
On an iPhone.
Open the chat, tap the contact or group name, then Export chat. If the chat contains media, choose With all media, With selected media or Without media.
Send it somewhere safe.
Pick an app such as Mail and send the export to yourself, then copy it off the phone.
Know what you get. On Android, WhatsApp attaches only the most recent media when you include media. On an iPhone, the chat is exported as a ZIP file, and view once messages are left out. Either way, the export is a text file rather than a backup, so it can’t be imported back into WhatsApp. Save the photos and voice messages that matter most on their own as well.
Can you get into a loved one’s phone or accounts?
Only through the routes the companies offer, so it helps to know them before you need them.
A locked phone stays locked. Apple says a device locked with a passcode is protected by passcode encryption, and it can’t help remove the passcode lock without erasing the device.
Apple Legacy Contact. If they named you, you can request access with the access key and their death certificate. Apple lists Messages in iCloud, iCloud Photos, Voice Memos and iCloud Backup content among the data you can get, and access lasts three years from Apple’s first approval.
Without a Legacy Contact. Apple says it needs legal documentation, generally a death certificate, and possibly a court order naming you as the rightful inheritor of their personal information.
Google and Facebook. Google says that in certain circumstances it may provide content from a deceased user’s account, after a careful review, but it can’t provide passwords. Meta says a Facebook legacy contact can’t log in as the person or see their private messages.
Our guide to what happens to your photos when you die covers each of these routes step by step, including how to set them up for yourself.
How do you keep the words that matter most?
You don’t need to keep every message. Choose the ones that sound like them:
The way they signed off every time, and the nicknames only they used.
A running joke, or a photo they sent with a one-line caption that still makes you laugh.
Advice they gave you, word for word, and the message you read again on hard days.
The last messages, even the ordinary ones about lifts and shopping.
Voice messages and voicemails. Our guide to saving voicemails from a loved one shows how.
For each one, note the date and what was happening, copy the text into a document you can print, and keep the screenshots in a folder named after them. Then store it all the way you would photos: three copies, one of them away from home, as our guide to backing up family photos explains.
How it helps.
The messages that sound like them deserve a better home than one phone. In the Ancestorii app, you can copy a favourite message into a family memory, with the photo it belongs with, so it lives with the story rather than in a chat. Screenshots upload to an album like any other photo, and saved voice messages can be added as voice notes, converted to M4A automatically so they play on any phone.
Each Loved One profile tells a life in four chapters: Early years, Important moments, Special memories and Who they are. A message in their own words fits naturally in Who they are. The Free plan includes one Loved One profile; Premium, at £3.99 a month per family, includes as many as you need.
My Family is private to the people you invite, and nothing is shared publicly unless you choose to publish a story on Our Stories. See how Loved One profiles work.
Frequently asked questions.
How do I keep text messages forever on an iPhone?
How do I save a WhatsApp chat from someone who has died?
What happens to a person’s text messages when they die?
Can I get into a loved one’s iCloud after they die?
Will their messages disappear if their phone stays switched off?
Sources
- Apple Support · Delete messages and attachments in Messages on iPhone (accessed October 2026)
- Apple Support · Recover deleted messages in Messages on iPhone (accessed October 2026)
- Apple Support · Send and receive audio messages in Messages on iPhone (accessed October 2026)
- Apple · iCloud Terms and Conditions (last revised 14 September 2026)
- Android Help · Back up or restore data on your Android device (accessed October 2026)
- Google One Help · Back up your device (accessed October 2026)
- Google Account Help · Inactive Google Account Policy (accessed October 2026)
- SyncTech · SMS Backup & Restore (accessed October 2026)
- WhatsApp Help Center · How to export your chat history (accessed October 2026)
- Ofcom · Online Nation 2025 report (10 December 2025)
- Apple Support · Data that a Legacy Contact can access (16 April 2026)
- Apple Support · Request access to an Apple Account as a Legacy Contact (24 August 2026)
- Apple Support · Request access to a deceased family member’s Apple Account (24 August 2026)
- Google Account Help · Submit a request regarding a deceased user’s account (accessed October 2026)
- Meta · Adding a Legacy Contact (12 February 2015, updated 7 November 2019)