Need assistance for court case!

[amieb]

So my best friend is in the middle of a litigation over a family case that can potentially send a wife and child abuser to jail. She is in need of SMS evidence to present to the judge inside her old phone she is not using. The phone is no longer charging (the charging port is damaged). It can only run on battery power; so connecting it to the wall or a computer is not possible. The problem is that there are over 3,500 SMS/MMS texts in the phone and recovering them all before the battery runs out is a task all on its own. I took the battery off a similar phone with 100% battery power and downloaded an app on her phone from the Play store to start recovering all of her messages. The process was taking forever, understandably—and the battery ran out. When I booted up the phone again, the application completely failed and did not save any of the progress after many hours. It was supposed to recover all messages to an IMAP gmail account. I've never done this before and wasn't sure if I should have seen some of the messages as they were being copied to the email account or the app had to complete the process 100% before anything was delivered. Whatever it was, it failed because of the amount of messages it had to copy before the power ran out, and the app provided no way of pausing or saving progress for a later time so that I could recharge the battery. Is anyone aware of a better app or a better process of recovering MMS/SMS texts considering the condition of the phone's power limitation? The next hearing is coming up soon and her lawyer is requesting she submit the evidence asap so that he can study it before submitting it to the judge. Her phone was a Samsung Galaxy S4 with Android 4.4

 

[Golfdriver97]

Welcome to the forums. Have you asked your carrier if they can send a transcript of the texts?

 

[amieb]

Yes, my friend spoke to T-mobile. But the rep said that they don't keep actual text copies of said messages. They only keep records of time stamps and to/from cell numbers and sent locations. They also said anything older than 3weeks is deleted. These messages date back from 2yrs.

 

[Arsenio Martins]

If it's that serious I would recommend a company who specializes in forensics or have the police do it. You could download everything but what's to say the judge won't think it's been tampered with once it's in text format?

 

[amieb]

Because my friend has the digital original proof right in her phone?! These are her text messages. Once she receives a text from a person into HER phone, it becomes her property. I think her lawyer would have voiced something if it was a legal concern. She just needs an official paper transcript because she cannot possibly pull out her cellphone at the judges face in the middle of an arbitration. The lawyer is also requesting these so that he can study his arguments as well. And no, the police isn't going to do her any favors. For now they are not involved until allegations are proven in court. Look, I'm just asking for a faster app suggestion so that I can extract these stupid texts. Someone in these forums has to have some experience backing up their text messages! I have to help her in this. No one is going to do it for us and we're running out of time.

 

[Joeykool]

I don't have a solution but I wish you the best of luck.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[ManiacJoe]

I'm just asking for a faster app suggestion so that I can extract these stupid texts. Someone in these forums has to have some experience backing up their text messages! I have to help her in this. No one is going to do it for us and we're running out of time.

This is the catch. You are not looking to backup your text messages. You are looking to do data recovery from a damaged phone. There are companies that will do this for you, but you will have to pay for it.

 

[amieb]

But the phone is not damaged except for the charging port. I can still turn it on (on battery), read texts, install apps...everything except keep it running long enough to download all of the texts because the app I tried is too slow for so many texts.

 

[ManiacJoe]

I use "sms backup & restore" by Carbonite
https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...om.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore&token=C5Nrm9hZ
However, I have no idea how quickly it will run on 3500 messages.