Help center

SMS Locker reads the backup that your iPhone creates on a computer. You don't need to install anything on the phone itself, but you do need a few things set up on your computer.

For everyone

• An iPhone running iOS 12 or newer (we've tested through iOS 18).
• The USB / Lightning / USB-C cable that came with your iPhone.
• Your Apple ID password — your phone may ask for it when you back up.
• Free disk space on your computer roughly equal to your iPhone's used storage. (A 128 GB iPhone with 80 GB used needs ~80 GB free.)
• A SMS Locker account — sign up at smslocker.com/signup.

If you use a Mac

• macOS Catalina (10.15) or newer — backups are managed by Finder (built in, no install needed).
• If you're on macOS Mojave or older, you'll use iTunes instead — same steps, slightly different menus.

If you use Windows

• Apple Devices app (Windows 11) or iTunes (Windows 10). Free from Apple — get from the Microsoft Store or apple.com/itunes.
• If Windows pops up "Trust this Computer?" on your phone when you plug it in — say Trust.

Pick the section that matches your computer below. Both paths land you at the same result: an encrypted backup file sitting on your computer's disk, which SMS Locker will then read.

macOS (Catalina or newer — uses Finder)

1. Plug your iPhone into your Mac with its cable.
2. On your iPhone, unlock the screen. If it shows "Trust This Computer?", tap Trust and enter your iPhone passcode.
3. Open Finder on your Mac. In the left sidebar (under "Locations"), click your iPhone's name.
4. The main panel shows phone info. Click the General tab if not already there.
5. Scroll to the Backups section and pick the radio button:
   "Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac."
6. Check the box: "Encrypt local backup." A password prompt appears.
7. Enter a password you'll remember (or save in a password manager). Click Set Password.
8. Click Back Up Now. The first backup takes 10 minutes to 2+ hours depending on how full your phone is — leave the cable plugged in.

Windows 11 (uses Apple Devices app)

1. Install Apple Devices from the Microsoft Store if you don't have it.
2. Plug your iPhone in with its cable.
3. Open Apple Devices. Select your iPhone from the left list.
4. In the main view, choose General.
5. Under Backups, pick "Back up all the data on your iPhone to this computer."
6. Tick "Encrypt local backup" and set a password.
7. Click Back Up Now.

Windows 10 (uses iTunes)

1. Install iTunes from apple.com/itunes (or the Microsoft Store).
2. Plug your iPhone in. Trust the computer when prompted on the phone.
3. In iTunes, click the small phone icon near the top-left.
4. Left sidebar → Summary.
5. Under Backups → "This computer".
6. Tick "Encrypt iPhone backup" and set a password.
7. Click Back Up Now.

1. Go to smslocker.com/signup. Enter your name, email, and a password (8+ characters).
2. Click Create account. Your 7-day free trial starts immediately.
3. You'll land on the download page right away. You can download and start using the app now; the verification step below can wait a few minutes.
4. We send a verification email from support@smslocker.com. Open it (check spam/promotions if it's slow) and click Verify email.
5. The download page auto-detects your OS and surfaces the right installer as the big "Recommended for you" button. Just click and download.

Installing on macOS

1. Double-click the downloaded .dmg file.
2. A window opens with the SMS Locker icon and an Applications shortcut. Drag SMS Locker onto Applications.
3. Close the window. In Finder → Applications → double-click SMS Locker.
4. First launch may show "SMS Locker is from an unidentified developer" (we're working on a notarized release). If you see that: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Installing on Windows

1. Run the downloaded .exe installer.
2. Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC" — click More info → Run anyway. This is normal for new software that hasn't built up download history; we're working on code-signing certification.
3. Choose install location (default is fine) and finish.
4. Find SMS Locker in your Start menu.

1. SMS Locker opens to a sign-in screen. Enter the same email + password from signup.
2. Accept the Terms of Service when prompted (first sign-in only).
3. We'll ask you to set up two-factor authentication. A QR code appears.
4. Open your authenticator app — Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, Microsoft Authenticator all work. Scan the QR code.
5. The app generates a rotating 6-digit code. Type it into SMS Locker and click Verify.
6. Save the 10 backup codes we show you. Each works exactly once and is your way back in if you lose your phone. Print them, photograph them, or paste them into a password manager.

1. From the SMS Locker sidebar, click Import.
2. The app scans your computer for iPhone backups automatically. You'll see a list with iPhone name, date of last backup, and size.
3. If nothing appears: make sure you did Step 1 successfully and that iTunes/Finder reports a recent backup. You can also click Browse to point at the backup folder manually.
4. Click the backup you want and press Import.
5. You'll be asked for the backup encryption password you set in Step 1. Type it and click Unlock. We store it in your operating system's keychain (Mac Keychain, Windows Credential Vault) — encrypted by the OS, never sent to us.
6. Watch the progress bar. The app will say things like "Reading manifest", "Decrypting messages", "Extracting attachments". Larger libraries (100k+ messages) can take 20+ minutes. Don't close the app or sleep the computer during this.
7. When done, click Conversations in the sidebar and you should see every text thread you've ever had.

What gets imported

• SMS + iMessage text messages
• Group chats with their member lists
• Attached photos, videos, audio, links, and stickers
• Contacts (with names and photos)
• Voicemails (audio + transcripts where iOS provided one)

Re-importing later

After your first import, every time you create a new iPhone backup, SMS Locker can pull in just the new messages — much faster. Just click Import → pick the latest backup → it diff's automatically.

Conversations view

• Every thread, sorted by most-recent. Click any to open it.
• Group chats show the participant list at the top.
• Sidebar shows the contact's photo (from your address book) plus initials fallback.

Inside a conversation

• Scroll to load older messages — virtualized list, handles years of history smoothly.
• Click any attachment to preview the full-size photo / video / file.
• Jump to date — click the calendar icon at the top of a thread, pick a month/year.
• Right-click a message for quick actions: Save, Reply (export quote), Copy text, Delete.

Searching

• Top-right of the app: search bar. Searches across every message in every conversation.
• Searches are instant even with hundreds of thousands of messages (full-text index).
• Results show the match in context with the conversation name and date.
• Click a result to jump to that message in the conversation.

Filters

From the search bar dropdown you can narrow by: only with attachments, only specific sender, date range, only iMessage, only SMS.

The Voicemails tab in the sidebar shows every voicemail your iPhone has stored. They came in with the import automatically.

Each voicemail row shows

• The caller's name (resolved from your contacts) or phone number
• Date received and duration
• An audio player when you click the row — with play/pause, 1-second skip-back, skip-forward, scrubber
• Apple's auto-transcription, if iOS generated one for that voicemail

Deleting voicemails

• Click a row to expand → Delete button at the bottom of the expanded player.
• Multi-select: long-press or tick the checkbox at the start of any row to enter selection mode. Then tap others to add. A toolbar appears at the top with Select All / Clear / Delete N.
• Deleted voicemails go to the Recycle Bin for 30 days before being permanently removed.

Some texts you never want to lose. Click the star icon on any message to save it to one of six built-in categories or your own custom one.

Built-in categories

• Important — anything you don't want to lose
• Funny — the all-time greats
• Reference — instructions, account numbers, codes
• Receipts — order confirmations from texts
• Addresses — quick lookup
• Remember This — catch-all

Custom categories

Settings → Categories → + Add. Pick a name and a color. Now available when starring any message.

Where saved items live

Sidebar → Saved. Browse by category. Saved status syncs across all your devices instantly and survives re-imports.

One account covers up to 5 active devices (Macs, Windows PCs, iPhones, iPads, Android phones — any mix).

How it works

• Sign in to each device with the same email + password (and 2FA code).
• One device imports the iPhone backup. The rest automatically receive messages, contacts, photos, voicemails, and saved-message metadata from the server.
• Sync runs every few minutes on desktop, and on app-open / pull-to-refresh on mobile.
• What changes on one device flows to all the others (save, delete, restore — all of it).

Adding a new device

1. Install SMS Locker on the new device.
2. Sign in with the same account. Enter your 2FA code.
3. It will start syncing immediately. First sync can take 5–10 min if you have lots of messages.

If you hit the 5-device limit

From any device: Settings → Devices. Click the device you no longer use → Revoke. That frees the slot. The revoked device gets signed out the next time it tries to sync.

iPhone / iPad (TestFlight, invite-only during beta)

We're currently in TestFlight beta on iOS. To get access:

1. Email support@smslocker.com asking to be added.
2. Apple sends you an invitation email titled "You've been invited to test SMS Locker".
3. Install the free TestFlight app from the App Store on your iPhone.
4. Open the invitation email on your phone → tap Start Testing. SMS Locker installs.
5. Open SMS Locker, sign in with the same account you use on desktop.

Android (APK side-load)

1. On your Android phone, open smslocker.com/download. The Android APK is the recommended download.
2. Tap the download. You may need to enable Settings → Apps → Install unknown apps for your browser.
3. Tap the downloaded APK → Install.
4. Open SMS Locker. Sign in with the same account.

Anything you delete — single voicemails, individual messages, entire threads — moves to the Recycle Bin first, where it stays for 30 days. Open it from the sidebar to restore items individually (right-click → Restore) or empty everything (Empty Recycle Bin button). After 30 days items are removed permanently. The bin works across all your devices — delete on one, it's in the bin on all of them.

What stays on your computer (never sent anywhere)

• The iPhone backup itself (sits where Finder/iTunes put it)
• Your backup encryption password (stored in your OS keychain only)
• Attachment binary files — photos and videos stay local on each device for performance

What goes to our server (so multi-device works)

• Message text + metadata (sender, timestamp, conversation)
• Voicemail audio + transcripts
• Contact names and phone numbers
• Contact photos (so they display on every device)
• Your saved-message categories

What we can't see

• Your account password (stored only as a one-way bcrypt hash)
• Your 2FA codes (we have the secret but not your current rotating code)
• Your iPhone backup password
• The original iPhone backup files (they never leave your computer)

Server-side backups

We back up your messages on the server every night to off-site storage. Each user's backup is encrypted with a different AES-256-GCM key derived from a master key + your account ID. Even our database operators can't read the contents.

Two-factor authentication

Required on every account. Setup happens on your first sign-in (Step 3 above). To change devices later: Settings → Security → Reconfigure 2FA.

Go to smslocker.com/account (must be signed in) for all account controls.

What you can do there

• Change password (requires current password)
• Reconfigure 2FA (e.g. when getting a new phone)
• Manage devices (see all 5 active devices, revoke any)
• Update profile (name, address — used for receipts)
• Export your data (GDPR-style full data export as JSON)
• Delete your account (wipes everything, irreversible)

Forgot password?

From the sign-in screen, click Forgot password? → enter email → check inbox for reset link. Link expires in 1 hour. We never email your password.

Free trial

Every new signup gets 7 days free, no credit card required. Full functionality.

After the trial

Two ways to keep using the app:

• Stripe checkout — Account → Subscribe → enter card → done.
• License key — if you have one (e.g. lifetime, gifted), enter it on the account page.

Trial expiry

If the trial ends without you subscribing, the app warns you but keeps your data safe. Subscribe within 30 days and you're back to normal — no loss.

Canceling

Account → Cancel subscription. Cancels at the end of the current billing cycle. Your data is retained for 30 days after access ends in case you re-subscribe. After that it's purged.

macOS and Windows

The app checks for updates on launch and every few hours after. When one is found, it downloads in the background. You'll see a banner saying "Update downloaded — Restart Now". Click Restart Now (or quit + reopen) and the new version takes over.

Android

We don't auto-push APK updates yet. Re-download from /download and install on top — your data is preserved.

iOS (TestFlight)

TestFlight handles updates automatically. You'll get a push notification when one's available, or open the TestFlight app and tap Update.

Email support@smslocker.com and we'll respond within a business day.

Please include:

• Your account email
• Platform (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android) + app version (shown in the bottom-left of the app, or Settings → About)
• What you were doing when the issue happened
• Any error message — screenshots help a lot

You can also use Settings → Send feedback inside the desktop app — it ships diagnostic logs (no message content) along with your message, which speeds debugging considerably.