General
- SMS Backup & Restore backs up SMS/MMS messages and call logs on Android phones so that they can be restored or transferred later.
MMS messages include messages with pictures/music/videos and usually group messages.
Draft messages also get backed up and restored as long as the messaging app makes the drafts available in the phone’s messaging database. A lot of messaging apps keep the drafts internal to them so this may or not work for all messaging apps. - The app always creates a local backup on your phone, and has options to upload backups to the cloud, which is essential if the phone ever gets lost or stolen or just stops working.
- Backups can be created on-demand, or can be scheduled to automatically create recurring backups.
- Backups can be viewed and searched directly from the app.
- It can also delete all messages and/or calls from the phone to free up space. Of course, we highly recommend that you have backups of them before you delete them.
- All messaging apps that use telephone carrier based SMS & MMS Messages and store the messages in the phone’s messaging database.
- It does not support apps that use the SMS & MMS messaging but do not store the messages in the phone’s messaging database. For example, Signal or Threema.
- It does NOT support anything that has its own messaging platform (WhatsApp, Skype, WeChat, Lyne, etc.) as they do not use SMS/MMS.
SMS Backup & Restore is, as the name suggests, a backup and restore app. That means it can back up existing messages (and call logs) from the phone and can recover the same from backups. To be able to recover deleted data, it needs existing backups of those messages and call logs. The backups should have been created before the deletion.
The backups created by the app are either stored on the phone or on your own chosen cloud account (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive etc). The backups are never sent to the developer.
If you do not have a backup created by the app then, unfortunately, this app cannot recover deleted messages and call logs for you.
If you have an existing backup then select the Menu > Restore option in the app. The app will then guide you thru the process of selecting a backup and restore the messages and/or call logs.
This app can only restore messages that were backed up by it before the messages were deleted. As long as you have a backup of the messages, it can restore from the backup. The contents of a backup can be checked using the Menu > View backups feature in the app or via the online viewer at this page.
This app only uses and supports backups in its specific XML format and cannot restore from backups created by other apps or in other formats like *.db, *.vmsg, *.csv etc.
It does not have access to backups that appear in the “Backups” section on the Google Drive app. Those are backups created by Google and cannot be used by other apps.
Yes it can, on Samsung phones or if you use Google’s Messagesapp for messaging.
Google’s Message app now supports RCS messaging with all service providers in USA as well as a lot of providers outside of USA. Messages stores these messages in the SMS/MMS database on the phone as MMS messages and SMS Backup & Restore can backup and restore these messages. If you wish to use RCS messages and backup/restore them using SMS Backup & Restore then we recommend using Google’s Messages app instead of the phone’s built-in messaging app.
On some phones, a factory reset can delete everything on the phone’s memory and storage area, including SD Cards.To make sure that you don’t lose the messages / calls on the phone, do the following:
Before Factory Reset:
Confirm that the backup contains your important messages. You can do so using the Menu > View Backups feature in the app itself or by using the online viewer.
Make sure that a copy of the backup is stored outside the phone. There are a few different ways to do that:
- Configure the app to upload the backup to Dropbox, Google Drive or Email and then create a new backup. Confirm that the backup XML file gets uploaded to the cloud account or arrives in the email.
- Copy the backup file to a computer manually and confirm that the size of the file on the computer is the same as what the app shows
- Manually email the backup to yourself. To do so, from the main screen of the app, tap on Menu > View backups, select the Local tab and then tap on the 3-dots menu on top right and then select Send File.
After Factory Reset:
- Install the app again
- If you uploaded the backup to a cloud account,
- Tap the Restore button
- Select the cloud account type on the screen and log in to the correct account
- The app will select the latest backup file on the cloud account, follow the on-screen instructions from there.
- If you copied the files to a computer,
- Copy/download the backup file created before the reset back to the phone
- Change the Backup Folder setting to the folder in which the backup file exists
- Restore
- If you sent the file to email,
- Open your email client on the phone,
- Download the backup file from the email client
- Tap on the downloaded file and the phone should ask you to select an app to open the file with, select SMS Backup and Restore and then follow the on-screen instructions to restore.
Currently, the only way to reset the password is to uninstall and re-install the app.
Thiswill notremove your backups, however you will need to set up the app preferences again.
Our translations come from volunteer users of our app! As such, there may be incomplete or incorrect translations. Any strings that are not translated will appear in English. Translations are an on-going process. If you’d like to volunteer to translate for us, please email us at[emailprotected]
The app itself has a built-in viewer that can be used to the contents of the backup file. This can be accessed using Menu > View backups.
To view the backups outside the app or from a computer, use the online viewer on our site.
Note that the online viewer processes the whole backup file within the browser on the computer itself and can have troubles loading very large backups, especially if they have too many images/videos etc (MMS messages). If you find that the viewer gets stuck or shows errors about memory issues, restart the browser and then make sure the checkbox to “Load images and other media” is disabled before selecting the xml file to view.
We’ve created an in-depth list ofhow to transfer messages from different phones and devices.
Notes:
- If you get an Error during SMS Restore, please try restarting the phone and restore again. Sometimes the internal database for the messages gets corrupted and is fixed upon restarting the phone.
- Some logs suggest an antivirus app interfering with the restore. Uninstalling/Disabling the antivirus app fixes the restore issue.
- Please send us the logs as soon as you get the error, otherwise the logs will not contain the information needed.
Reporting Errors
If you’re getting an error, then we will need to have a look at the logs to figure out the issue and either make a fix in the app, or determine if there’s something wrong with the settings or the phone. This app has a built-in option to Send Logs in case of errors. This option normally appears when the app encounters an error, and allows you to send us an email containing details of the app’s activity and the error it encountered. You can also find the option by going to Menu > Help and feedback.
We have decided to make the app ad-supported so that we can continue to develop and support the app and its users. The app displays a non-intrusive banner ad at the the bottom of the main screen. If you do not wish to see the ads in the app, you can remove them by opening the settings and then turning on the option to “Remove ads”. After that, restart the app and it will not display ads any more.
Advanced messages (or Enhanced messaging) use a new messaging technology called RCSand these messages are different from the normal SMS and MMS messages.
You can check if you are using RCS in your messaging app by long pressing on a message (that was not backed up) and select Show Details, if it says “Advanced Message”, “Chat” or “Rich Communication Services” then this is an advanced message (called RCS), it’s not an SMS or MMS message.
Google’s Messages app supports RCS messaging with most mobile service providers in the world. Messages stores these messages in the SMS/MMS database on the phone as MMS messages and SMS Backup & Restore can backup and restore these messages.
UPDATE Starting with v10.15.002, SMS Backup & Restore supports backup of RCS/Chat messages on Samsung phones (using Samsung’s Messages app). These messages get backed up as normal SMS/MMS messages depending on the content and will be restored as normal SMS/MMS messages.
Note that since these messages do not get restored back as RCS/Chat messages, this may result in duplicates appearing in the Samsung Messages if a restore is performed with existing RCS/Chat messages already in the Samsung’s Messages app. To work around duplicates, you may need to delete the messages from the Samsung’s Messages app, or use a different messaging app like Google Messages.
Most of the features are the same in the free and the paid version of the app, except:
- The free version has ads while the paid does not.
- The paid version has options to compress and encrypt the backup files.
- The paid version has support for using WebDAV as a cloud location for backups.
This app can be set up to send the xml backup files via email. It does not store individual messages as separate emails in Gmail.
The email option does not appear during the initial setup process as we do not recommend using it due to the attachment size restrictions in most email services.
If you wish to set up email as a backup destination, you can set it up from Menu > Settings > Backup location > Email.
This appears to be an issue with the Android 10 implementation on OnePlus phones. The same issue does not happen on the Pixel phones with Android 10.
It appears the phone shows the dialog to change the default SMS app but does not let the app confirm that it is the default SMS app.
In most cases, restarting the phone once after setting SMS Backup & Restore as the default SMS app allows it to continue with the restore.
If the above doesn’t work then SMS Backup & Restore can be manually selected as the default SMS app from the Phone Settings > Apps > Default apps setting. After that, restart the phone and the restore should work.
In some cases, the app cannot find or pair with the other phone during transfer via Wifi-Direct. The first thing to try is to restart both the phones and see if the transfer works after that. If it still fails, we suggest that you upload a backup from the phone to a cloud account, like Google Drive or Dropbox and then Restore on the other phone from there.
Starting with v10.11.001 of the app, it has a dedicated menu to print (Menu > Print from backups). This will take you thru selecting a backup and then selecting a conversation to print. The print can be sent to a physical printer or saved as a PDF.
The online viewer on this website can also be used to easily view and print the messages or call history.
The default setting in the app is to back up all the messages and call logs available on the phone at the time of the backup (Full backups). While this is a good option for quickly creating a new backup, it can quickly take up a lot of storage space if there are lots of messages and scheduled backups are used to created regular backups. There are a few different ways to reduce the storage:
- Use a different backup type – create incremental backups or use archive mode. This can be changed from Menu > Settings > Backup settings > Backup type. More info at What are the backup types supported by the app?
- Only backup selected conversations. This can be done from Menu > Settings > Backup settings > Selected conversations.
- Only backup messages sent/received after a certain date. This can be done from Menu > Settings > Backup settings > Withing date range.
- Set the app to automatically delete older backups. This setting is available for each of the cloud accounts supported and can be changed from the respective cloud settings screen at Menu > Settings > Backup location. For local backups, the app can be set to limit the storage used, this can be set from Menu > Settings > Backup location > Retention.
The app always creates temporary local copies of the backups even when its set to only store them on cloud accounts. This is to ensure that there is a backup available if the upload to the cloud account fails. It also makes it easier for the app to retry uploads to the cloud accounts as well as upload the same backup to multiple cloud accounts if configured to do so.
It also maintains a local copy of the last backup, so that a restore can use the local copy instead of downloading it again. Once the backup has been successfully uploaded to the cloud accounts, it deletes previously stored local copies, except the last backup. It can be set to delete this last backup copy as well from the settings at Menu > Settings > Backup settings, as shown below:
Save local copy – when enabled, a copy is kept on the local storage of the phone for all backups created.
Local backup folder – The local folder where the local copy of the backup should be stored. This defaults to the app’s private folder so that the backups cannot be accessed by any other app. It can be configured to stored these backups on any folder on the phone or to other supported storage like external SD Cards.
Keep local copy of latest backup – This specifies if the app should always keep a copy of the latest backup, even if the “Save local copy” above is turned off. Turning this off will make the app delete any local copies as soon as the cloud backups have been successfully uploaded.
Archive Mode backups
Archive mode works by adding newer messages or call logs to an exist backup and thus always needs a local copy of the backup so that it can be appended. For this reason, the above settings to not keep a local copy do not work if the app is set to use Archive mode.
We do not have an iPhone/iOS version of the app because iOS does not allow 3rd party apps like ours to access messages or call history. To transfer your messages or call history from an Android phone to an iPhone, you will need to use the iPhone’s transfer feature during the initial setup process of the phone.
iOS does not allow 3rd party apps like ours to access messages or call history. Due to this restriction, SMS Backup & Restore cannot work on iOS and thus we don’t have an iOS version of the app.
To transfer your messages or call history from an Android phone to an iPhone, you will need to use the iPhone’s transfer feature during the initial setup process of the phone.
Starting with v10.12.001, the Pro version of the app now supports WebDAV as a backup location. This is in addition to the existing support for Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive.
WebDAV is supported by a variety of cloud services as well as popular NAS devices. To configure WebDAV in the app, open Menu > Settings > Backup location, scroll down to the WebDAV options. The same options are also available while creating a new backup.
Server URL – The URL for the WebDAV service. This is dependent on the service being used, so please consult the service documentation. Refer to the list below for some of the popular services.
User name – The username for authenticating with WebDAV service.
Password – The password for the account.
Folder – The folder in which the files should be stored. The default is /webdav but can be changed. Some services may need a custom folder being specified here based on the settings for the account and this may need to be manually entered here.
Select a folder – Once the root folder has been specified in the setting above, this button can be used to visually select/change the folder.
Delete backups older than – Like the other cloud accounts, this can be used to automatically delete backups older than specified number of days. This is only applicable for full backups.
Server URLs for some popular services
| Service | Server URL | Folder |
| Box | https://dav.box.com | /dav |
| Nextcloud | https://server-name/remote.php/dav/files/username ex: https://demo2.nextcloud.com/remote.php/dav/files/Fred | [Your Own Folder] |
| Owncloud | https://server-name/remote.php ex: https://example.com/owncloud/public.php | /webdav |
| pCloud | https://webdav.pcloud.com (US) https://ewebdav.pcloud.com (EU) | / |
Starting with Android 11, the phone can automatically remove permissions assigned to the app, if it hasn’t been actively used for a while. This can happen even if the app is set to automatically create scheduled backups. To make sure that the permissions are not removed for the app, it now shows a note on the main screen of the app with a button where you can turn off this setting for the app.
More info about this permission revocation in Android is available here.
The app needs various permissions to be able to backup and restore messages and call logs. Not all of the permissions declared are requested or required for its functioning. It will only request the permissions it needs when it needs them.
- SMS
- Read SMS – To backup messages.
- Write SMS – To restore messages.
- Receive SMS – To handle messages received while the app is the default messaging app (during restore or when deleting messages).
- Send SMS – The app does NOT request this permission and never sends any messages, however, some phones bundle and display this permission when the app requests the permission to Write SMS and become the default SMS app.
- Call Logs
- Read Call Logs – To backup call logs.
- Write Call Logs – To restore call logs.
- Contacts
- Read Contacts – To store contact names in backups and to display the contact names when viewing the backups in the app.
- Write Contacts – Required by Android to restore call logs.
- Storage
- Only used on phones running older versions of Android to store the backups on SD cards or external storage on the phone. This permission is not requested on newer phones as the backups are stored in the app’s internal folder by default.
- Location
- Only requested when using the app’s built-in transfer feature. This is a requirement of Android to be able to discover nearby devices.
- Network state/connections
- Only requested when using the app’s built-in transfer feature. It uses these permissions to make Wi-Fi Direct connections as well as reset network if needed.
- Accounts
- To authenticate with Google Drive and Gmail for cloud uploads.
- Prevent Phone from Sleeping
- To prevent the phone from going to sleep/suspended state while a Backup or Restore operation is in progress.
- Run at start-up
- Start scheduled Backups.
This app doesn’t directly support importing Google Voice messages but there are various scripts developed by users of this app that you can use to convert the Google Voice messages exported using Google Takeout into the XML format used by SMS Backup & Restore.
One of the most complete implementation is at https://github.com/SLAB-8002/gvoice-sms-takeout-xml
Please note that we haven’t used these scripts ourselves so you will have to try it out yourselves and check if it works for your use case.
Google is trying to reduce the risk of inadvertent access to data by making it difficult for app developers to gain full access to user’s Google Drive account. Their recommended access is to only allow apps to access files that the app created. Due to this change from Google, we also do NOT recommend that you assign full-access to the app.
