How do you save threatening or harassing text messages for the police or a protective order?

By Kayabyte · Last updated 11 November 2026

Short answer: keep the messages on the phone, do not delete anything, make a backup of the iPhone on your Mac, and then export the whole conversation with the date, time and sender number on every message, rather than a handful of cropped screenshots. Give the police, your lawyer or a victim advocate a clean, complete copy, and keep the original phone and files. This is general information, not legal advice. Rules and forms differ by country, state and court, so ask the police, a legal aid service or a lawyer what they want to receive. If you are in danger now, contact your local emergency number first.

Do first

Do not delete the messages, the thread or the contact. The phone is the source. Turn off anything that might remove old messages (see the Keep Messages setting).
Take a quick screenshot of the latest messages if you are worried they could disappear. It is a stop-gap, not the final record.
Write down dates and what happened around each message, such as where you were or who else saw it. Keep notes separate from the messages.
Do not edit, crop or retype anything you may hand over.
Think before replying. What you say next can become part of the record. A lawyer or advocate can advise you.

Why screenshots are not enough

Screenshots crop out context, often show a saved contact name instead of a phone number, and may not show a date and time on every message. A long thread becomes hundreds of images. Whoever reads them cannot easily see the sequence, and the other side can say something was left out.

What a good copy shows

The date, time and sender (phone number or email) on every message, in order.
The whole conversation, or a clearly marked excerpt with a few messages of context either side.
Photos next to the message they came with, and the original files kept separately.
Page numbers, so a page can be referred to (“Page 3 of 41”).
A note of where the messages were read from.

Steps with Exhibitly

Exhibitly is a Mac app we make. It reads an iPhone backup made in Finder (encrypted backups too, using your own backup password), the Messages app on your Mac, or a WhatsApp chat export, and writes a numbered PDF, an Excel file with one row per message, and the original attachments. It works offline and nothing is uploaded.

Make an iPhone backup in Finder: see how to make an iPhone backup on a Mac.
Open Exhibitly and pick the conversation. Choose the whole thread, a date range, or excerpts with context.
Look through the preview. If something in the thread should not go to the person receiving it, such as an address of someone else, redact it. Redaction is kept on your Mac.
Export. The PDF shows the date, time and sender number on each message, with page numbers and photos inline. The export also contains the Excel file, the original attachments with SHA-256 fingerprints, SHA256SUMS.txt, and a verification page that says which source was read.
Keep the phone, the backup and the export folder untouched, and give a copy to the police, your lawyer or an advocate if they ask.

The free preview has every feature but exports only the first 15 messages and marks the PDF “PREVIEW, NOT FOR FILING”. Personal is USD 39 once; Evidence Bundle (Bates numbers, exhibit cover page, merging iPhone and Mac) is USD 69 once. macOS 15 or later.

What Exhibitly cannot do: it cannot recover deleted messages, it does not read Android SMS or Android backups, and it does not prove that messages are genuine or decide whether a court or the police will accept them. A WhatsApp export file is a text file, and edits made to it before it is imported cannot be detected; Exhibitly records its SHA-256 when it reads it.

Download Exhibitly (free preview)

Questions

Should I give the police my phone? That is a question for the police or a lawyer. Do not delete anything, and ask what they want before you hand anything over.

Can I send only the worst messages? You can use excerpts, but the other side can usually ask for the rest, and a clearly marked excerpt with context is easier to defend than a collage. Ask your lawyer or advocate which messages to include.

What about messages that were deleted? Exhibitly cannot recover deleted messages. Check Recently Deleted in Messages and your older backups, and ask a professional if recovery matters.

What about voicemails, call logs or social media messages? Exhibitly covers text messages (iMessage, SMS, RCS) and WhatsApp chats. Keep other evidence as it is and ask whoever is helping you how to present it.

Does a PDF count as evidence? A PDF is a readable copy. Courts and police decide what they accept, and may want the phone itself. Ask a lawyer.