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Legal Text Collector¶

Text messages made printable

Text Collector turns your messages into court-friendly PDF files.

Install Text Collector for Android or see the walkthrough

Filter by date Preview the PDF Share with your attorney
Screenshot of date filter Screenshot of message preview Screenshot of sharing app chooser

Walkthrough¶

  1. Install the app

    Text Collector in the Google Play store

    Legal Text Collector is available on Google Play.

  1. No collections yet

    Empty collection list

    Nothing to see yet. Start by tapping the “New collection” button.

  2. Ready to start a collection

    Filtering screen, some small text and a big button that says "Collect Messages"

    A “collection” is just a copy of your messages. For now, let’s collect all your messages.

    Tap “Collect messages”

  3. Accept permissions

    Android's dialog requesting SMS permissions

    Phones running recent Android versions will ask you if you want Text Collector to access your messages and contacts.

    The message is a bit confusing because it asks if you want to allow Text Collector to read and send messages.

    Text Collector does not send messages. See the privacy policy for more info.

  4. Collection now in progress

    Collection list with one collection "in progress"

    Collecting all your messages can take a few minutes, so, in the meantime, let’s start a smaller collection that’s restricted to recent messages.

    Press “New collection”

  5. Date filter the collection

    Filtering screen again, this time notice the "starting" and "ending" date fields

    Let’s collect just messages since April 2017.

    Tap the “Starting” date field

  6. Pick start date

    Date picker

    Pick the first day of the month

    Tap “OK”

  7. Look at what the filters will do

    Date picker is closed, the starting date field now shows first of the month

    We don’t need an end date; this collects messages on or after the first of the month. Unless we received messages from the future, that will work for “since April.”

    Tap “Collect messages”

  8. Wait for it…

    Collections list, now with two complete collections

    This finishes quicker. When it does, the message changes from “in progress” to the number of messages it collected.

    Tap the finished collection

  9. Preview the PDF files

    Preview of the collection's information page

    The first page shows a summary of what we collected.

    Pinching zooms in and out.

    Tap “Next” to navigate the messages

  10. Find a person

    Preview of some messages in printable format

    You can jump straight to conversations with particular people.

    Tap “Find”

  11. Scroll through people

    List of names and phone numbers in the collection

    When you share the collection, each of these becomes a separate document.

    Bare phone numbers at the bottom are for numbers that don’t have an entry in your address book.

    Tap Xena

  12. Share the collection

    Tapping the "share" button

    When you’re happy with the results, export the collection by using Android’s sharing feature.

    Remember you can share with yourself.

    Tap “Share”

  13. Pick all or just one

    Option to choose "this conversation" or "all conversations"

    After tapping “Share,” you can choose to export just the conversation you’re viewing, or the whole collection.

    Tap “Continue”

  14. Unlock sharing

    Dialog explaining that you'll need to purchase now

    At this point, you need to purchase the sharing feature. One purchase lets you share as many collections as you like.

    Tap “Continue”

  15. Pick how to share

    Android's dialog for choosing an app to share something

    After you finish buying the share feature, Android pops up a chooser where you can pick how you want to share.

    This collection is small enough that email works fine. For larger collections, Dropbox or Google Drive work better.

    Tap “Gmail”

  16. Send it

    Draft email with an attachment in the Gmail app

    Now you’re in the Gmail app with your messages attached to a draft email. Send it to yourself so you can open it on an ordinary computer.

  17. Open it

    Listing of files from a collection

    Text Collector puts your messages in a zip file. When unzipped, you can see each conversation as a PDF.

    Read about the collection format

    See the frequently asked questions

End of walkthrough¶

Use Text Collector for ediscovery in your lawsuit or if you just want to print your text messages.

Features More
  • Collects SMS, MMS, some types of RCS
  • Converts messages to PDF
  • Includes images and other attachments
  • Organizes messages by conversation
  • Collects all messages or filters by date

Share printable messages by email, Dropbox, or any other file sharing app.

Get it on Google Play What about iPhone?

Documentation

News on Twitter

Preview the results for free. Share as many text message collections as you like for a small in-app purchase.

©2017-2022, Joe Ulfers. | Disclaimers, privacy & license | Contact help@legaltextcollector.com