Table of Contents
Loading Your Backup
Textuoso works with XML backup files produced by SMS Backup & Restore (SBR) by SyncTech. If you don't have a backup yet, start here.
Step 1 — Create a backup on your Android phone
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Install SMS Backup & Restore from the Play Store if you haven't already.
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Open SBR and tap "Back Up Now".
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Under "Backup location," choose a cloud location you can find later from your desktop/laptop. Google Drive is fine for exports, but has issues with imports, so we recommend OneDrive. Under "Advanced Options," make sure "Attachments and media" is selected, and optionally enable "Selected conversations only" if you don't want a full backup.
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Tap "Back Up" and wait for it to finish. Large message histories can take a long time.
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Note the exact filename: it will start with "sms-" followed by a timestamp (e.g. sms-20260528181700.xml).
Step 2 — Get the file to Textuoso
You have two options:
On a desktop/laptop (recommended)
Download the exported XML file via OneDrive, Google Drive, or DropBox. Then, open Textuoso in your browser and drop the file.
On your phone (if saved locally)
Open Textuoso directly in your phone's browser and tap the drop zone to browse to the backup file. No transfer needed, but interface limited on the phone.
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Open Textuoso in a modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari).
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Drag and drop your XML file onto the upload area, or click it to browse.
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Textuoso will index your messages. Large files (> 5 GB) may take over a minute.
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Once indexing is complete, your conversations appear in the left panel.
Textuoso never uploads your file. All processing happens locally in your browser. Your messages are never sent to any server.
Restoring to Your Phone
Getting a cleaned backup back onto your phone takes a few careful steps. We recommend testing first on a single exported conversation (see testing section below).
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Make all your changes in Textuoso — delete conversations, strip media, etc.
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Export your cleaned backup from Textuoso (tap Export in the top bar). We recommend naming the exported file with an sms prefix, otherwise SBR will not detect it during imports.
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Upload the cleaned XML file to DropBox or OneDrive (recommended) so it can be imported by SBR. You can also transfer the XML to your phone over USB, but the cloud method is much easier.
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In SBR, click the Menu button and tap Restore. If it doesn't detect your file, select "Select another backup," choose the cloud service you used, and navigate to your XML file.
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In SBR, tap Restore. SBR will then start the process of merging that file with your current texts, skipping any duplicates. This process will likely take a while.
SBR's restore is a merge, not a replace. It adds messages from the backup file to whatever is already on your phone and silently ignores duplicates. As a result, if you want to replace all texts on your phone with the cleaned up version, you must first delete all texts on the phone before importing. Make sure to verify the correctness of the original export before doing this. In addition, we recommend testing small imports before deleting any texts. See the testing section below for tips.
Textuoso imports have only been tested with SBR and Google Messages. If you are using a different messaging app on your phone, we highly recommend testing imports before removing any texts from your phone.
The exported filename must start with sms to use with SBR. SBR silently hides any file that doesn't match this prefix, regardless of content.
Testing Before You Commit
A large restore is hard to undo. A replacement is impossible to undo unless you have a saved export and have already verified imports. So, before wiping your phone and restoring, take a few minutes to verify that small imports actually work. This is especially important if you are using a messaging app other than Google Messages, as the current workflow has only been tested with that app.
Try the demo first
If you haven't used Textuoso before, click Try Demo on the landing page to load a sample backup. Practice selecting, deleting, stripping media, and exporting on the demo data before touching your real backup. You'll learn the workflow with zero risk.
Generating test conversations
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In Textuoso, select a single low-stakes conversation — ideally a short one with a few messages and media.
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Use the hamburger menu → "Test export" to export just that conversation as a standalone XML file. Textuoso will fictionalize the numbers and add TEST: before the contact name, making it easy to spot on your phone.
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Restore that file in SBR on your phone.
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Open your messaging app and confirm the conversation appeared correctly, messages are in the right order, and any media is visible. IMPORTANT: it might take some time for Google Messages to recognize all media for large conversations.
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If anything looks wrong, investigate before doing a full restore.
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Repeat the process with multiple conversations selected, until confident that imports are fully working.
Stress testing
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Select critically important conversations from your backup XML file.
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Use the "Test export" feature to generate test copies of those conversations.
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Restore the test copies to your phone using SBR.
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From SBR, generate a fresh backup that includes both the original conversations and the test versions, then open it in Textuoso.
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Verify that the original and test conversations have the same number of messages, the same media, and the same total storage size.
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When confident that imports are fully working, it should be safe to wipe your phone, and reimport a cleaned up version of your messages.
Always keep your original unmodified backup file as a safety net until you've confirmed the restore looks exactly as expected. Once messages are deleted from a phone, they're gone unless you have a working import process.
Use Cases
Deleting conversations
Use this to permanently remove entire conversation threads from your backup. For example, spam, old group chats you no longer want, or conversations with people you've lost touch with.
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In the left panel, find the conversation you want to delete. Use the Search button at the top to filter by name, number, or message content.
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Tick the checkbox next to the conversation. You can tick multiple conversations, or use Shift+click to select a range. You can also press Shift+Up/Down to select one at a time.
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The selection toolbar will appear at the top of the list. Click "Delete" to mark them for deletion, or simply press the delete key.
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Deleted conversations are shown with a strikethrough, and are moved to the "Trash" tab. No changes are made to your original file until you export.
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To undo, select the deleted conversations and click "Restore". You can also click the Undo button, or use Ctrl+Z.
Deleting a conversation removes all messages in it — both sent and received. If you only want to remove specific messages, use per-message deletion instead.
Use the Filter button above the conversation list to narrow by date range, whether a conversation has attachments, or to show only likely spam. The spam filter is useful for quickly identifying and bulk-deleting unwanted messages from unknown numbers.
Deleting individual messages
Use this when a conversation is mostly fine but contains specific messages you want removed (e.g., duplicate messages, messages older than some date, or anything you'd rather not keep).
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Click a conversation to open it in the right panel.
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Click a message bubble to select it. The message will highlight in blue.
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Use Shift+click to select a range of messages, or Ctrl+click to add individual messages to the selection. Use Shift+Up/Down to select one more at a time.
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With messages selected, press Delete or Backspace, or use the Delete button on the toolbar that appears at the top of the conversation.
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Deleted messages are shown faded with a strikethrough. The conversation itself remains in your backup.
Use the Filter button at the top of the message view to narrow by date range, direction (sent or received), or message type (SMS or MMS). This is useful for quickly selecting all messages before or after a certain date, or targeting only one type.
Stripping media attachments
You know those thousands of animated GIFs you've sent over the years? They're probably taking over a GB of space. MMS attachments (photos, videos, audio) make up most of the size of a typical backup. Stripping media removes the binary attachment data while keeping the message thread. The conversation still shows the message was sent/received, and any text content is preserved.
Stripped vs. deleted: Stripping a message keeps the message in the conversation but removes its attachment — the text and timestamp remain, only the file data is gone. Deleting a message removes it entirely, as if it was never sent. Use stripping when you want to preserve the conversation history but reclaim space; use deletion when you want the message gone completely.
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Select the conversation you want to clean up in the left panel.
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To strip attachments: switch to the media view, which shows all attachments in a grid. Select the ones you want to strip and press Delete — this removes the file data but leaves the message in the conversation.
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To delete messages entirely: stay in the message view, select the messages and press Delete — the message and its attachment are both removed from the conversation.
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In the media view, use the Filters button to sort by size to find the largest attachments first.
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Stripped attachments are shown with a red "STRIPPED" badge. Deleted messages are shown with a strikethrough. To undo either, select them and click Restore in the toolbar, or press Ctrl+Z.
Stripping media is permanent after exporting. If there are photos or videos you want to keep, save them externally first (see below) before stripping, or save a full backup with all media.
Browsing and saving media
Sometimes you need to find a specific file buried in years of messages — an important document, a photo, a voice memo, etc. Textuoso's media view makes this easy.
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Open a conversation and click the "Media" tab at the top right of the conversation panel.
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All media attachments in the conversation are shown as a grid, sorted by date. Use the Filters button to narrow by type (image, video, audio), date range, or direction (sent/received).
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Click any tile to select it, double-click to open it full-screen for easier viewing.
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In the full-screen mode, use the left/right arrows (or arrow keys) to navigate through media.
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To save a single file, open it full-screen and click the download button, or right-click the image/video in the grid and choose "Save as."
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To save all media from one or more conversations at once, select the conversations in the left panel and choose Export media from the hamburger menu. This downloads a ZIP of all non-stripped attachments.
If you're looking for an old document someone sent you years ago — a PDF, a scanned form, a contract — switch the media type filter to "Other" in the media view. Document attachments often get lost in image-heavy conversations. Similarly, if you're looking for a video, filter by videos to remove the numerous images that are likely in the conversation.
If loading is too sluggish, turn off Auto-load media in the hamburger menu. Images will then load on demand when you click them.
Controls & Menu Actions
These controls work the same way in all three views.
| Action | Desktop | Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Select / deselect | Ctrl+click, double-click (messages), or checkbox | Long-press (selects first item); tap to add/remove in selection mode |
| Range select | Shift+click or Shift+↑/↓ | Long-press second item |
| Range select (additive) | Ctrl+Shift+click | — |
| Navigate | Arrow keys | — |
| Delete / strip selected | Delete / Backspace | Action bar button |
| Delete / strip active | Delete / Backspace (no selection) | — |
| Select all | Ctrl+A | — |
| Clear selection & active | Escape | — |
Tap / click behavior differs by view: In the conversation list, a tap always opens the conversation. In the messages and media views, a tap sets the active item when nothing is selected, or toggles that item when you're already in selection mode.
Full-screen viewer (messages and media): double-click or double-tap an image or video to open it full-screen, or press Enter on the active item. Use ← / → (or swipe) to navigate, and Escape or tap outside to close.
Menu actions
The hamburger menu (top-right) contains the following actions. Items marked with a count require at least one conversation to be selected first.
Contacts
Import or export your contact list as a JSON file. This lets you carry contact names across sessions — if you reopen a backup that doesn't contain contact names in the XML, importing a previously exported contact list will restore them.
Remove duplicates
Scans all conversations for exact duplicate messages (same address, timestamp, and body) and marks the extras for deletion. Useful when a restore was run twice and created duplicate threads.
Test export
Exports the selected conversations as a standalone XML file with fictionalized phone numbers and TEST: prepended to every contact name. Use this to verify that a restore works correctly on your phone before committing to a full restore. See the Testing section for the full workflow.
Export media
Downloads all media attachments from the selected conversations as a ZIP file. Only non-stripped attachments are included. Use this to save photos and videos externally before stripping them from the backup, or simply to archive media from a conversation you plan to delete.
Auto-load media
When enabled, images in the message view load automatically as you scroll. Turn it off if scrolling feels sluggish on large conversations. Videos always require a manual tap to load, regardless of this setting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why isn't Google Messages showing all my imported photos and conversations?
Google Messages indexes imported messages in the background and it can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours before everything appears, especially for large restores. Give it time. The messages are likely there; Messages just hasn't displayed them yet.
One important gotcha: clear your Google Messages trash before restoring. If any of the messages you're restoring are sitting in your trash (recently deleted), SBR will treat them as duplicates and silently skip them. Go to Google Messages → Menu → Trash → Delete all, then run your restore.
Why can't SBR find my exported file on Google Drive?
Google Drive enforces app-level file ownership. SBR can only see files that SBR itself originally created on Drive. Files you manually uploaded or copied there (including Textuoso exports) are invisible to SBR, even if they're in the correct folder.
The solution: use OneDrive instead. OneDrive does not have this restriction. Any file you put in the right folder will be visible to SBR. If you plan to use cloud storage for SBR backups, OneDrive is the recommended option.
Alternatively, use local storage: copy the exported file directly to your phone's SBR backup folder over USB or Bluetooth, then make a fresh SBR backup to trigger a rescan. We only recommend this option for users that are used to manual file transfers to/from a phone.
Why doesn't SBR detect my XML file?
Make sure the filename starts with sms. SBR filters any files without that prefix. Also, see the Google Drive problem in the previous question.
Will restoring overwrite my existing messages?
No. SBR's restore is a merge operation — it adds messages from the backup file to your existing messages and silently skips duplicates. It will not delete or overwrite messages already on your phone. This means it's safe to restore multiple times or restore partial backups.
My backup file is several gigabytes. Will Textuoso handle it?
Yes. Textuoso uses a streaming parser specifically designed for very large files. It reads through the file in small chunks and only holds message metadata in memory. The raw attachment data (which accounts for most of the file size) is never fully loaded. A 5 GB backup with 200,000 messages typically indexes in under a minute.
Media attachments within conversations are loaded on demand when you view them, not all at once.
I made a mistake. Can I undo it?
Yes — use the Undo button in the top bar (or Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z) to step back through your changes. Textuoso keeps a full undo history for your session.
More importantly: Textuoso never modifies your original backup file. All changes only exist in memory until you export. If you close the tab without exporting, your original file is completely untouched.
Why aren't contact names showing up in my group messages?
Textuoso resolves contact names for group conversations by looking them up from individual 1:1 conversations in the same backup. If those individual conversations have been deleted — either before exporting from SBR or within Textuoso — there's nothing to look up and the group thread will show phone numbers instead of names.
To fix this before it happens: export your contact list using Contacts in the hamburger menu before deleting any individual conversations. You can re-import that file at any time to restore names across all conversations, including groups.
What message types are supported?
Textuoso supports SMS and MMS messages produced by SMS Backup & Restore. RCS messages have not been tested and may not be handled correctly.