SMS Backup & Restore XML viewer

You backed up your texts with SMS Backup & Restore and got a file like sms-20261014123000.xml. Opening it on a computer shows a wall of code. Here's how to read it properly.

What's inside the XML file

Every text is an <sms> line with the phone number (address), the contact name, a timestamp in milliseconds (date), a human-readable date (readable_date), and type: 1 means received, 2 means sent. The text itself is in body. Picture and group messages are <mms> entries with their text and attachments in <part> elements.

Every conversation is mixed together in date order, which is why it's hard to read raw.

Other ways to read it

• Restore to a phone. SMS Backup & Restore can restore the file onto any Android phone. This works, but it merges the messages into that phone's inbox.
• Open it in a browser. Newer versions of the app save a stylesheet with the backup. Without one, the browser just shows the raw XML.
• Import into Excel. Data → Get Data → From XML gives you a table. Every conversation ends up in one sheet, and the dates show as raw numbers.

Turning it into a PDF

Pick one conversation in the viewer and press Print / Save as PDF. The PDF gets a cover page listing who was in the conversation, the date range, the message count, and a SHA-256 hash of your original .xml file. Then every message follows, numbered and marked as sent or received. People use it for court, landlord and employment disputes, insurance claims, or just to keep a copy of messages from someone who has died.

Full guide: printing Android texts for court · WhatsApp chat viewer