How to print text messages from iPhone for court

By Caner Kaya, Kayabyte · Last updated 16 October 2026

If you’ve been asked to bring your text messages to court, or your lawyer wants “a copy of the texts”, you’re probably wondering how to get them off your phone and onto paper. Apple doesn’t have a print or export button for conversations on the iPhone, so it isn’t obvious.

This guide explains three ways to do it, from the simplest to the most complete, and what a judge or lawyer usually wants to see on the page.

This is practical guidance, not legal advice. Every court has its own rules about evidence and filing. Check your court’s rules, or ask a lawyer or your court’s self-help centre, before you file anything.

First: what the printout should show

Whatever method you use, aim for pages that show:

The date and time of every message. Not just “Yesterday” or “Tuesday”.
Who sent each message, ideally with the phone number or email address, not only the name you saved in your contacts. A name like “Mum” or “J” means nothing to a judge.
The whole conversation around the important messages. If you only show the worst message, the other side may say it was taken out of context. Courts in many places have a rule that lets the other side ask for the rest.
Page numbers, so everyone in the room can find the same page.
No changes. Don’t crop, highlight, draw on or edit the messages. If you want to point something out, do it in a separate note or ask your lawyer how.

Keep your phone, too. Don’t delete the conversation after you print it. If anyone questions whether the printout is genuine, the original messages on your phone are your backup.

Method 1: Screenshots (no computer needed)

This works if you only need a short conversation, a few days or a few dozen messages.

Open the conversation in Messages.
Show the timestamps. In a conversation, swipe left with one finger and hold. The time of each message appears on the right. Take your screenshot while holding (press the side button and volume up together).
Show the phone number. Tap the name at the top of the conversation, then tap it again (or tap “Info”) to see the number. Take a screenshot of that screen too, so the court can link the name to the number.
Work from top to bottom, overlapping each screenshot slightly with the last so nothing is missed.
Print the screenshots in order, or put them into one document (Pages, Word or Google Docs), one or two per page, with page numbers and the date range written at the top.

The downsides: dates only show at the start of each day, you have to hold the swipe for every screenshot to see times, and long conversations turn into hundreds of images. Screenshots are also easy to edit, which is one reason lawyers sometimes prefer a proper export.

For a more complete version of this method, see How to print text messages from iPhone without screenshots.

Method 2: Print from the Messages app on a Mac

If you have a Mac signed in to the same Apple Account, your messages may already be there.

On your iPhone, check that Messages in iCloud is on: Settings, tap your name, iCloud, then Messages (on some versions it’s under “Show All”). For SMS (green bubble) messages, also turn on Text Message Forwarding for your Mac in the Messages settings.
On the Mac, open Messages, then Messages, Settings, iMessage, and tick Enable Messages in iCloud. Give it time to sync, sometimes several hours.
Open the conversation and scroll all the way up to the first message you need. The Mac only prints what it has loaded.
Choose File, Print, then in the bottom-left choose PDF, Save as PDF.

The downsides: it often doesn’t show the full date and time on every message, the other person may appear only as a contact name, photos can be missing, and very long conversations can be slow or incomplete. And if the Mac never synced your older messages, they won’t be there at all. Our guide How to print iMessages from a Mac covers this in more detail.

Method 3: Export from an iPhone backup

The most complete copy of your messages is the one on your iPhone. When you back up your iPhone to a Mac using Finder, the backup contains your full message history, usually years more than the Mac has. Software can read that backup and turn a conversation into a proper document.

Back up your iPhone to your Mac in Finder. Our step-by-step guide is here: How to make an iPhone backup on a Mac (and encrypt it).
Open the backup in an export tool, pick the conversation and the dates you need.
Save it as a PDF, check every page, then print it or send it to your lawyer.

This is where Exhibitly comes in. It’s a Mac app we make that reads your iPhone backup (encrypted ones too) or your Mac’s Messages, and creates a PDF with the date, time and sender on every message, with phone number or email, page numbers, photos in place, and an Excel file alongside. You can choose the whole conversation, a date range, or just the key messages with some context around them, and redact details that shouldn’t be shared. The Evidence Bundle edition adds an exhibit cover page and Bates numbers. Every edition includes a verification page listing the sources read and the SHA-256 fingerprints of the attachments and databases, a SHA256SUMS.txt file with the fingerprint of every exported file (the PDF and Excel file too), and, if you want it, a plain text copy of the messages (“Messages as text.txt”) for searching. Everything stays on your Mac. The free preview lets you see the result before you pay.

Printing tips

Print on plain white paper, one side, unless your court says otherwise.
Make enough copies. Often one for the judge, one for the other side, one for you, and one for any witness. Your court’s rules or your lawyer can tell you how many.
Label it. Courts often call each document an “exhibit” and give it a number or letter. Ask what labelling your court uses.
Many courts now prefer PDF files for e-filing. If you’re filing online, check the size limits and whether the PDF must be text-searchable.

In the United States and the United Kingdom

In the US, the person offering the messages usually has to show they are what they claim to be (“authentication”). Often that’s done by someone who was in the conversation explaining it under oath, sometimes in a short written statement. A clear, complete printout with numbers and times makes that easier.

In England and Wales, family court bundles normally leave out copies of text messages unless the judge asks for them, and bundles have a page limit. You may be asked for a short selection with page references rather than the whole history. Ask your solicitor or the court what’s needed.

A last word

Getting this together while a case is going on is stressful. Start early, keep your phone safe and charged, and don’t delete anything. If you can, show your printout to your lawyer before the hearing so they can tell you whether anything is missing.