Is it possible to 'import' SMS messages when doing a 'new setup' with an iPhone?

[Technique]

To explain...

 

After 'upgrading' (I use the term very loosely) to iOS 10, I may need to do a clean setup - erase the whole phone & start from scratch rather than restoring from a backup (basically iOS10 has killed my battery).

I have the apps on my PC which i can manually put on so that's ok.

Photos too i could put on manually.
But i was wondering about SMS text messages?

 

To be honest most of them i'm not so bothered about, but a few years ago my father died & I kept our SMS text conversation on my phone so it's kind of sentimental value if you will. I don't want to lose that. I know i could screenshot every text but it'd be much easier if i could somehow get it on the phone.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

On 11/18/2016 at 4:35 PM, Technique said:

To explain...

 

After 'upgrading' (I use the term very loosely) to iOS 10, I may need to do a clean setup - erase the whole phone & start from scratch rather than restoring from a backup (basically iOS10 has killed my battery).

I have the apps on my PC which i can manually put on so that's ok.

Photos too i could put on manually.
But i was wondering about SMS text messages?

 

To be honest most of them i'm not so bothered about, but a few years ago my father died & I kept our SMS text conversation on my phone so it's kind of sentimental value if you will. I don't want to lose that. I know i could screenshot every text but it'd be much easier if i could somehow get it on the phone.

unless a third party solution, I'm afraid to say.....you're screwed. Of course, I probably am (wrong, that is), but hey....before a next time happens, do this frequent backups.....that way, you KNOW you can restore from something awesome.

[Max Veteran]

Why not perform an iCloud backup, restore to iOS 9.3.5, then restore everything from the cloud, SMS included? You can go backwards with cloud backups too. Unless you want to stick with iOS 10, and that would work anyway.

[Technique]

I got there in the end actually but that last comment is interesting.

 

I thought you couldn't go back to say 9.3.5 as Apple aren't signing it any longer?

 

And i can't do a full iCloud restore anyway since my photos etc are way over the backup limit & i'm not about to start paying for storage.

[Circaflex]

There is a way to do it, it takes some time, but I have done it.

 

Follow this guide, here, but you make a complete backup of your current setup. Then using the iBackupBot application, you extra the SMS/MMS/iMessage from your current backup to your computer. Reset the phone and start from scratch. You then make a backup of your "fresh" or "clean" install, use the iBackupBot program to re-import your messages into the newest clean backup. Once that finishes, you just need to use iTunes to restore from the backup and it will restore iOS as a clean install with your messages. I have done this many times now and it does work.