A few weeks ago I created a small PHP script that could extract text messages from an iPhone SQLite storage file. It required the user to have a PHP interpreter ready in order to run the script, which might be an obstacle keeping him or her from using the script.

Because I’m currently having more fun to do some programming in PHP than to rewrite the original script in Java (most people will have a JVM and/or JRE installed), I created a new webpage that uses the original script.

Click: SMS / text message extraction from iPhone

The usage is simple: select the SQLite database file, make customizations if desired (otherwise default values will be used) and click “Extract”. You might have to wait a little while depending on the size of your storage file. After the file has been (automatically) uploaded and messages have been extracted, you will be offered a download prompt for the result file.
See the above page for further details.

Compared to other online solutions out there, this version (as well as the original script) has more ways of tailoring the output to your own needs and the usage is utterly free. However, so far you cannot yet change the arrangement of phone number, date and message in the new online version; if you want to do that, you will still have to use the original work (which was released under CC BY 3.0).

Please leave comments about the usage into this blog post, so I can improve the page and script if necessary.

Cheers

UPDATE (21/11/2011): Correct CSV export was added.

UPDATE (05/01/2012): Now supports iOS 5 container.

UPDATE (13/03/2012): Now extracts iMessages correctly.