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How to print text messages from an Android phone

For a few messages, screenshots are fine. For a whole conversation with dates, times and phone numbers, back the messages up to a file first.

Quick way: screenshots

Open the conversation, tap a message to show its time, and take screenshots (usually power and volume down together). Print them from Google Photos with ⋮ › Print. This works for short conversations, but it's slow for long ones and the timestamps aren't always visible.

Whole conversation: back up with SMS Backup & Restore

  1. Install SMS Backup & Restore by SyncTech from the Google Play Store. It's free.
  2. Open it and tap Set up a backup.
  3. Turn on Messages. Open Advanced options and make sure Include MMS is on if you want photos.
  4. Choose where to save it: Your phone is simplest, or Google Drive.
  5. Tap Back up now. When it's done, you'll have a file named like sms-20261025123000.xml.
  6. Copy that file to your computer, using a USB cable, Google Drive, or by emailing it to yourself.

Turn the file into a PDF

  1. Open TextTranscript in Chrome or Edge and click Choose file.
  2. Pick the .xml file. Your conversations appear, newest first.
  3. Choose the person, set the dates, star the important messages, and download.

The file is read inside your browser. It isn't uploaded.

Want the whole conversation as a PDF? TextTranscript turns your backup into a clean transcript with dates, times, phone numbers and page numbers. Free preview, $12 for the full PDF, and nothing is uploaded. Open the app

Tips

  • Group texts are shown as their own conversations, with each sender's name or number.
  • If contact names are missing, the phone numbers are shown instead.
  • Messages in apps like WhatsApp or Signal aren't SMS and won't be in this backup.