Saving my text messages as a historical record

Three years ago I accidentally deleted all of my husband’s texts that he had sent me over a 9 year period (~2014-2022).  I liked having these as a family historical record.  Luckily, my iPad did not get synced after this deletion, so those 9 years of messages remained on the iPad.  I would love to find a way to make these 9 years of his messages a part of my iCloud record (for example) or at least save them in a way that I could still read them and search them.  I know this is a weird way to use these messages but I like having this history.


So far, I have not found a way to move those texts (messages) off my iPad to a more permanent and sustainable storage.   Does anyone have an idea how this might be accomplish?   

Posted on Aug 19, 2025 12:59 PM

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1 reply

Aug 20, 2025 08:41 PM in response to NC1127

Re: Saving my text messages as a historical record :

I have not found a way to move those texts (messages) off my iPad to a more permanent and sustainable storage.


Am no expert on this, yet it seems there are ways, (besides making multiple screenshots, or painstakingly "copy and pasting" to a document): To, at least, help get your discussion thread under way, and provide opportunity for others to share their experience.


If it helps: For iPad OS16 or later: You can Forward and share messages on iPad - Apple Support


You can: Set up iCloud for Messages on all your devices - Apple Support to sync messages to other devices.


Please note: iCloud is mainly for syncing data across multiple devices and / or computers.

For data in sync.

If you delete items on one device or in iCloud, the items delete on every device that is in sync.

Saving my text messages as a historical record

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