Message Archive vs TextTimeline
An honest comparison of Message Archive and TextTimeline for turning text messages into something you can hand to a court, including where TextTimeline is the better buy, what each costs, and the difference between a provenance page and an independent timestamp.
What TextTimeline is good at
TextTimeline is a hosted service built for one job, family law evidence, and it is built well for it. You upload a message export in your browser, it organises and indexes the history, and it produces either a clean timestamped transcript or a full evidence report with an executive summary and a CSV index where every finding cites the message it came from. There is no app to install and no Mac required.
It solves two problems we do not. It runs anywhere a browser runs, including for somebody whose only computer is a Windows machine or who has no computer at all beyond a phone, and it reads Android messages and OurFamilyWizard exports, neither of which we touch. It also does synthesis: it reads the history and writes a themed summary, which is work a person would otherwise pay a paralegal by the hour to do.
Its pricing is honest about the shape of the need. Most family law evidence work happens once, around one matter, and a one time $19 or $99 is a fairer fit for that than any subscription. If you have a filing next month and no ongoing reason to keep an archive, that is a better match than what we sell.
Side by side
| Message Archive | TextTimeline | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $47 per year, per Mac. | $19 one time for a court ready transcript, $99 one time for the full evidence report. No subscription. |
| Platforms | macOS only. | Runs in a browser, so any operating system. Free importer apps for Mac, Windows and Android get the messages off the phone. |
| Message sources | iMessage and SMS from the Mac’s own Messages database and from iPhone backups made on that Mac. | CSV and XML exports, including from their own importer apps, plus OurFamilyWizard PDF exports. Reads Android as well as iPhone. |
| Analysis and summary | None. It stores, searches and exports. It does not read your history and tell you what it says. | An executive summary with theme level synthesis, and a search that matches meaning as well as exact words. |
| Where your messages go | Nowhere. The archive is a local file on your Mac. Sealing sends a SHA-256 fingerprint of the export and never the messages themselves. | Uploaded to their cloud service to be processed. Their privacy policy states the raw upload is deleted once processing succeeds, and that an encrypted index of the message text is kept because the report has to quote and cite it. |
| How long the record lasts | As long as you keep the file. The vault is yours and stays on your disk. | A matter stays searchable for about 30 days from upload, and the derived index and reports are held up to 37 days from creation. Anything you bought is yours to download and keep. |
| Ongoing archive | Built to keep accumulating. History stays in the vault after the Mac and the phone have pruned themselves, and coverage shows which date ranges are actually held. | Built per matter. You upload what you have when you need a report, and the index is removed a few weeks later. |
| Provenance recorded with the output | A seal file recording the export’s SHA-256 fingerprint, plus the RFC 3161 token returned for it. | A source provenance page in the $99 report listing the source filename, the processing timestamp and message counts. |
| Independent timestamp | An RFC 3161 token from DigiCert, an independent timestamp authority. The time claim does not rest on the machine that made the file. | None described. The processing timestamp on the provenance page is written by the same service at the same moment it makes the report. |
| Cost for the other side to verify | Nothing. A web page, no account, no upload, and the check can also be done with standard tools without involving us at all. | The reader has the report and the provenance page inside it. There is no separate check a sceptical reader can run against the file. |
| Speed to a finished document | Install, import, then export. The import of a long history is the slow part. | Minutes. A few thousand messages in one to three minutes, 30,000 or more in five to ten. |
Choose TextTimeline if
- You have one matter, a deadline, and no reason to keep an archive afterwards.
- You do not have a Mac. We are macOS only and they run in a browser.
- Your messages are on Android, or in OurFamilyWizard, which we do not read.
- You want the history read and summarised into themes, not just stored and searchable.
- You want a bound report with an executive summary and citations, which we do not produce.
- You would rather pay once than hold a subscription.
Choose Message Archive if
- You want the history to keep accumulating, rather than being processed once around one matter.
- You do not want to upload years of private messages to anybody, including us.
- You want the record to still be yours and still be searchable in a year, not deleted on a retention schedule.
- You want the integrity of the file attested by an independent timestamp authority rather than by the program that produced it.
- You want the other side to be able to check the file themselves, free and without an account.
It cannot recover messages that are already gone from every source on your Mac and from every backup you still hold, and it cannot pull messages from a phone over the air. It is macOS only. It is not a certified forensic tool, and no software can promise that a court or an employer will accept what it produces.
Questions
- Which one should I buy?
- If you have one matter and a deadline, theirs is very likely the better buy, and it is cheaper. They will read Android and OurFamilyWizard exports, they need no Mac, and they will hand you a finished report with a summary in minutes. Our case is narrow: you want the history to keep accumulating after this is over, you do not want to upload it anywhere, or you want the file’s integrity attested by somebody other than the program that made it.
- What is the difference between a provenance page and a seal?
- A provenance page is a statement the program writes about its own work: this is the file I read, this is when I processed it, this is how many messages I found. It is useful and it is honest, and it is also unfalsifiable by the reader, because the same program wrote the file and the page at the same moment. A seal records the finished file’s SHA-256 fingerprint with an independent timestamp authority, so anybody holding the file can recompute the fingerprint themselves and see whether it still matches.
- Do I have to upload my messages to use TextTimeline?
- Yes, that is how a hosted service works, and they are clear about it. Their importer apps run on your own device and transmit nothing, but the export those apps produce is then uploaded by you, in your browser, for processing. Their privacy policy says the raw upload is deleted once processing succeeds and that an encrypted index of the message text is retained so the report can quote and cite it. Whether that is acceptable is a personal judgement, and for a lot of people it will be. Message Archive never sends messages anywhere, which is a different trade rather than a better one: it also means nothing is summarised for you.
- Does either of these make messages admissible in court?
- No, and no vendor can promise it. Admissibility depends on the rules where a matter is heard and on the person deciding it. What software can honestly offer is a record that is tamper evident and, in our case, independently timestamped. Whether that record is accepted is not a decision a vendor gets to make, and anybody handling your matter is a better source on that than either of us.
- Can I use both?
- Yes, and for someone in an active matter it is a reasonable combination. Keeping the ongoing archive locally and sending a specific date range to a service that will summarise it are not in conflict. The archive is what still exists next year.
- What happens to my TextTimeline matter after a month?
- Their retention policy says the search index is deleted automatically after about 30 days from upload, and their storage rule removes it at 37 days at the latest. Anything you bought is yours to keep, so download the PDF and CSV when they are ready. This is a normal and defensible policy for a hosted service holding sensitive data, and it is worth knowing about before you rely on being able to search the matter again later.
Sources
- TextTimeline home
- TextTimeline pricing
- TextTimeline how it works
- TextTimeline privacy policy, retention and importer apps
Message Archive is $47 a year, per Mac. It archives your iMessage and SMS history into a searchable vault on your own machine and seals exports so anyone can check them.
Related reading
How to print or export text messages for a court case
A plain English guide to getting text messages off an iPhone or Mac and into a form you can hand to a lawyer or file with a court, including what a screenshot does and does not show, and how to make an export that can be checked by someone who does not trust you.
Why Messages still has no archive function, and what to do instead
Mail has archive. Every chat app has archive. Apple’s Messages has delete and nothing between it and keeping everything forever. Here is why that gap exists, what the workarounds actually cost, and how to get a thread out of your inbox without losing it.
Where iMessages are actually stored on a Mac
Your Mac keeps every iMessage and SMS in a SQLite database inside your home folder. Here is exactly where it lives, what each file does, how to open it safely, and why copying it is harder than it looks.