Text messages for family court: a preparation checklist

1. Preserve

• Don't delete anything, including messages that seem unhelpful or embarrassing. Deleting can look worse than the messages themselves.
• Set Messages to keep everything. On iPhone: Settings → Apps → Messages → Keep Messages → Forever. On Mac: Messages → Settings → General → Keep messages → Forever. (On older iPhones, Messages is directly under Settings.)
• Make sure the history is on your Mac if you'll export from there. How to get iPhone messages onto a Mac.
• Keep the devices. Don't trade in, reset, or give away a phone or Mac that holds relevant messages until the matter is over, unless your lawyer says it's fine.

2. Choose what to include

• Ask first. Your lawyer may want everything with one person over a period, or only specific topics.
• Prefer complete stretches. "Every message from March 1 to April 15" is harder to dispute than twenty hand-picked messages, and it shows the context around each one.
• Include your side. An export shows both sides of the conversation, including your replies. Expect the other side and the judge to read all of it.
• Only conversations you were part of. Accessing someone else's phone or account to get their messages can be illegal and can badly hurt your case.
• Make a short list of the key dates and messages you want to point to, with page numbers once you've exported. It helps your lawyer, and it helps you at a hearing.

3. Export

Whatever tool you use, the export should show a date, time, and sender on every message and number every page. With Legal Message Export on a Mac:

1. Import your Messages database, then find the conversation.
2. Give each phone number a name, including your own.
3. Choose the date range or the run of messages.
4. Set a Bates prefix (your lawyer may give you one) so every page has an identifier.
5. Include the declaration page if your lawyer wants it, in your jurisdiction's wording, and don't sign it until they've reviewed it.
6. Export, then read the whole PDF and check the date range and message count on the cover page.

The full step-by-step guide →

4. Organize as exhibits

• Follow the court's labeling rules. Many courts require exhibit labels or stickers (Exhibit A, Exhibit 1) and a set number of copies. The clerk can tell you what's expected.
• Check privacy requirements. Some courts require certain details, such as a child's full name, birth date, or account numbers, to be redacted in filings. Legal Message Export doesn't redact, so ask how your court wants this handled before filing.
• Plan for copies. In many courts, the other party must receive a copy of anything you submit. Bring extra copies to a hearing: one for the judge, one for the other side, and one for you.
• Keep the originals. Keep the PDF you produced, and the device and data it came from, unchanged. If anyone questions the export, the source hash on the cover page lets it be checked against the snapshot on your Mac. How that works.

5. Before the hearing

• Read the export start to finish, the way the judge will.
• Know where your key messages are by page or Bates number.
• Be ready to explain, simply, how you produced the PDF: which Mac, which app, which conversation, which dates.
• If the other side says messages were faked or edited, that's a question for your lawyer, and possibly a forensic examiner.

Getting help

If you can't afford a lawyer, many areas have legal aid organizations and court self-help centers for family matters. They can explain local procedure, and some can review your exhibits with you. Legal Message Export is priced on a slider that starts at $0 for the same reason: the people who need a clean record most are often the ones with the least to spend.

Legal Message Export produces a documented record. It doesn't guarantee that a court will admit it; that's the judge's decision. Nothing here is legal advice.