TextPort review (2026): what it does well, what it doesn't, and who it's for

TextPort is an iPhone app that turns message conversations (iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram, or anything else on your screen) into clean PDF, CSV, or plain-text exports, without a computer. As of August 2026 it holds a 4.3 out of 5 average across more than 1,100 App Store ratings.

This review is published by TextPort, so read it as an interested party's account: how the app works, what it does well, and where it isn't the right tool. If you want fully independent opinions, the App Store reviews are public.

What TextPort does

The problem TextPort solves: iPhones give you no good way to get a conversation out of a messaging app. Apple offers no iMessage export. WhatsApp's built-in export is limited. Instagram, Telegram, and Signal offer little or nothing. The fallback, screenshotting everything, produces a camera roll full of images instead of a document.

TextPort's approach is capture-based:

1. Record or screenshot the conversation. Start a screen recording, open the chat, and scroll through it at normal speed, or use screenshots you already have.
2. TextPort transcribes it. The app reads every frame and reconstructs the conversation: message text, sender names, timestamps, and order. You can review and correct anything before exporting.
3. Export. PDF (formatted and print-ready), CSV (for Excel or Google Sheets), or TXT.

Because it works from what's on your screen rather than from an app's internal database, it isn't limited to iMessage. Any messaging app you can display, you can export, which backup-reading desktop tools can't match.

What it does well

No computer required. The full workflow runs on the phone. For most people who need a conversation exported — often in a stressful week involving a lawyer, a landlord, or an HR department — not needing to install desktop software, find a USB cable, and decrypt a backup is the single biggest practical advantage.

Every app, not just iMessage. iMessage, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram DMs, Telegram, Signal, and anything else on screen. Desktop tools like iMazing and Decipher TextMessage read the iPhone backup, which covers iMessage/SMS well but leaves most third-party apps out of reach.

Clean, structured output. Exports preserve sender names, timestamps, and message order in a readable layout. PDF is the format most users choose (it's what attorneys and courts want to see), and there are no volume limits: a 40-conversation export costs the same as one.

Reviewable before export. Transcription isn't a black box. You see the reconstructed conversation, can edit any message, and can correct timestamps before generating the file. For legal use this review step is essential, and the app is built around it.

Privacy posture. No account or email required, payment handled entirely by Apple, an App Store privacy label showing only diagnostics and purchase data in the "Data Not Linked to You" category, and imported content retained only until you delete it. The full breakdown is in Is TextPort safe?

A desktop escape hatch for bulk jobs. If you need your entire history, dozens of threads going back years, the desktop companion app for Mac and Windows pulls it all from a local backup in one pass, processed locally on your machine. It's included with the same subscription.

Where it falls short

Two of the drawbacks below (manual capture and transcription review) apply to the phone capture workflow, and the included desktop app removes them for iMessage and SMS: it reads your messages directly from an iPhone backup, so there's nothing to scroll through and nothing to transcribe. The trade-offs that remain:

It's a subscription. Full export access requires a weekly or annual subscription; the current price for your region is shown on the App Store purchase screen before you confirm. If you want a one-time purchase you keep forever, TextPort isn't built that way; the intended pattern for one-off projects is subscribing for a week, exporting without limits, and cancelling. That works, but some people reasonably prefer a perpetual license, and desktop tools offer that.

Capture is manual. Screen recording means scrolling through the conversation yourself. For a typical conversation that's a couple of minutes; for an enormous thread it's tedious. This is where the desktop app earns its place: for iMessage and SMS it ingests everything from a backup without any scrolling, at the cost of needing a computer. For third-party apps like Instagram or Signal, capture on the phone remains the only route.

Transcription is OCR-based, so review it. Accuracy on clear captures is high, but reading text out of images is not a database dump, and any transcription can contain an error. The in-app review step exists for a reason; for court use, read the export against the original before filing. Desktop exports sidestep this entirely: they read message text straight from the backup, so there's no transcription to check.

iPhone and iPad only. There's no Android app. The desktop app is a companion for iPhone backups, not a standalone Android solution.

It's not a certified evidence service. TextPort's terms say this in capital letters: it's a software tool, not a court reporter, forensic imaging service, or provider of authenticated transcripts. Exports are regularly prepared for legal proceedings, but admissibility is a question for your attorney, not an app.

TextPort vs. the alternatives

If you only need iMessage/SMS, own a computer, and prefer a license to a subscription, Decipher TextMessage and iMazing are credible tools; we've reviewed both. If the conversation lives in Instagram, Telegram, or Signal, or you don't want to involve a computer at all, the capture-based approach is effectively the only structured option, and that's the space TextPort is built for. A wider tool-by-tool comparison is in best apps to export text messages from iPhone.

Who TextPort is for

• Legal and dispute documentation — custody cases, harassment records, workplace disputes, immigration evidence. Timestamped PDFs are the core use case; in TextPort's survey of 1,081 U.S. adults, 38% had seen texts used in a formal proceeding they were involved in.
• Business records — client conversations and agreements made over text, exported to CSV or PDF for the file.
• Personal archiving — preserving conversations before switching phones, or backing up an entire history via the desktop app.

Who it's not for: Android users, people who want a one-time-purchase desktop utility for iMessage only, and anyone expecting certified forensic output.

Verdict

TextPort turns messaging-app conversations into clean, usable documents with less friction than anything else in the category: no computer, no account, any app, unlimited volume, and a free tier that lets you check transcription quality on your own conversations before paying. The subscription model and manual capture are real trade-offs, and we've tried to be plain about them — though the included desktop app removes the capture work entirely for iMessage and SMS.

The best way to review it, though, is with your own conversation: download TextPort, import a chat on the free tier, and judge the result yourself.