Text messages as evidence in family court: a practical checklist

By Caner Kaya, Kayabyte · Last updated 16 October 2026

Family court cases, such as divorce, custody, child arrangements or protective orders, often come down to what was said, and when. Text messages are some of the most common evidence people bring. They can also cause trouble when they’re incomplete, hard to read, or seem selected to tell one side of the story.

This checklist helps you gather and present your messages calmly and carefully. It’s practical guidance, not legal advice. Family courts have their own rules, and judges have wide discretion about what they want to see. Check your court’s rules, or ask a family lawyer, legal aid service or your court’s self-help centre.

Before anything else: keep it safe

• Don’t delete anything, even messages that make you look bad. Deleting messages during a case can cause serious problems, and the other person may have them anyway.
• Turn off auto-delete. On iPhone: Settings, Messages (on newer iOS, Settings, Apps, Messages), Keep Messages, set to Forever.
• Make a backup now. A backup of your iPhone on a computer keeps a copy even if the phone is lost or broken. See How to make an iPhone backup on a Mac (and encrypt it).
• Think about your safety. If the other person might check your phone, computer or shared accounts, be careful where you save exports. Use a device and email account only you can access. If you’re in danger, contact local emergency services or a domestic abuse helpline first.

Gather the right messages

• Write down what you want to show. For example: “He agreed to the holiday schedule on 3 May”, or “She cancelled pick-up five times in March”. Each point is a reason to include certain messages.
• Find the messages for each point, with their dates.
• Include the context. For each key message, include the messages just before and after it, so the reader can see what it was replying to. If you only include the worst line, the other side may argue it’s misleading.
• Don’t forget other places. Messages may also be in WhatsApp, email, social media or a co-parenting app. Keep each source separate and clearly labelled.
• Be honest about your own messages. Judges read both sides. Messages where you stayed calm help you; messages where you didn’t will usually come out anyway.

Make them readable and checkable

• Every message shows a date and time.
• Every message shows who sent it, with a phone number or email, not only a nickname.
• Pages are numbered.
• Nothing is edited. No cropping, highlighting, retyping or drawing on screenshots. If you want to point something out, do it in your statement (“see page 4, message at 21:14”).
• Photos and voice notes are kept in their original form, in a folder, as well as shown in the printout if possible.
• Private details of others are handled carefully, such as a child’s school, a new partner’s number or an address. Ask your lawyer or the court whether you should redact them.

For the details of a good export, see Export text messages to PDF for court: what the PDF should show.

Choose how much to include

More isn’t always better. Judges have limited time.

• United States: practice varies by state and court. Some judges want only the key messages in an exhibit, with the full conversation available if asked. Your local rules or a lawyer can tell you about limits and format.
• England and Wales: family court bundles follow Practice Direction 27A. It generally leaves out copies of text messages, WhatsApp messages and emails unless the court directs otherwise, and bundles have a page limit. You may be asked to include only specific messages the judge needs to read, with page references. Ask your solicitor or the court.
• Everywhere: keep the full conversation available in case the other side or the judge asks for it.

Be ready to explain them

Courts usually need someone to confirm the messages are real and what they appear to be. Often that’s you: you explain that the messages are from your phone, between you and the other person, using their number. Be ready to answer:

• Which phone and number are yours, and which are theirs?
• How did you make the printout, and when?
• Have you changed anything? (The answer should be no.)
• Where is the original? (On your phone, and in your backup.)

Keeping a short note of how you made the export, which device and software, and the date, makes this easier.

Organise it

• One exhibit per conversation or topic, labelled as your court or lawyer asks (for example “Exhibit 3” or “Exhibit C”).
• A cover page for each exhibit saying what it is: who, which dates, how many messages.
• A timeline that lists key events with dates and points to the page where each message is. See Custody evidence binder: what to include.
• Enough copies, usually for the judge, the other side and yourself, plus a digital copy.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Printing only one side of the conversation.
• Screenshots where the time isn’t visible.
• Contact names like “Ex” or “Do not answer” instead of a name and number.
• Bringing hundreds of pages without saying which ones matter.
• Accessing the other person’s phone or accounts without permission to get messages. This can be illegal and may be excluded.
• Posting the messages on social media.

Where Exhibitly helps

You can do all of this with screenshots and a word processor, and our guide How to print text messages from iPhone for court shows how. If you have a Mac, Exhibitly can save you a lot of time. It’s an app we make that reads your iPhone backup (encrypted too) or the Messages on your Mac, and creates a PDF with the date, time and sender on every message, with phone number or email, page numbers and photos inline, plus an Excel file and the original attachments with SHA-256 fingerprints. You can pick key messages with context, and redact private details. The Evidence Bundle edition adds an exhibit cover page, Bates numbers and merging of iPhone and Mac messages. 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.

Going through family court is hard. Take it one step at a time, and lean on your lawyer or support services where you can.