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iPhone SMS Management Utility: Syphone Beta

Micromat has a utility called Syphone which is a freeware Mac application that lets you view, save and backup your SMS messages.

The iPhone has a limit on the number of SMS messages it can store at one time. If this limit is exceeded, existing conversations must be deleted in order to make room for new messages. Syphone allows you to view and/or save any of these conversations, including deleted messages.


A beta is presently available for download. Requires Mac OS X 10.4 or greater

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Posted: 55 months ago
It is funny that this just got posted because I was looking for a way to save text messages yesterday and found this.

One thing I dont understand is if I need to be selecting and exporting them to ensure they are saved. Or are they just working off the backups? Is it already saved?
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Posted: 55 months ago
So, how many messages will the phone hold before I have to delete?
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Posted: 55 months ago

So, how many messages will the phone hold before I have to delete?


The iPhone can hold 1000 individual text messages.
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Posted: 55 months ago
I believe the (artificial) limit is 1000. This is still much better than my old RAZR V3i, which only held ~125 messages at a time, even less if the messages were long. :mad:
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Posted: 55 months ago
Why can't it be more then 1000 messages? My Sony Ericsson K800i can hold 1000 too, why so little? I have more then 2GB of space in it. Why can't it be stored there. And even the iPhone, it runs OSX!! 1000 is way to low, I can send 1000 SMS messages via Vodafone for 10eu a month. And every month I have to clean my inbox, which is reallyyyyyy annoying. I hope when I get an iPhone this is improved.!!!!
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Posted: 55 months ago

I believe the (artificial) limit is 1000. This is still much better than my old RAZR V3i, which only held ~125 messages at a time, even less if the messages were long. :mad:


Just for nerd-dom... a max SMS message is 256 bytes or less, which means the iphone could hold well over 33.5 million messages. Thats a text message a second for 388 years.

Hope you like that touch keyboard!
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Posted: 55 months ago

Just for nerd-dom... a max SMS message is 256 bytes or less, which means the iphone could hold well over 33.5 million messages. Thats a text message a second for 388 years.

Hope you like that touch keyboard!


Exactly, maybe there's some limit in the memory. When my Sony has alot of messages it slows down with the scrolling and opening and back. Maybe that's the reason.
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Posted: 55 months ago
yes there is a maximum limit... I have hit it and had to delete messages (and i wasn't out of space on my iphone)... Also this program doesn't seem to work with an hacked iphone because I can't get mine to recognize.
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Posted: 55 months ago

yes there is a maximum limit... I have hit it and had to delete messages (and i wasn't out of space on my iphone)... Also this program doesn't seem to work with an hacked iphone because I can't get mine to recognize.


Well, my iphone isn't hacked in any way, shape or form and it doesn't recognize it, either. Very strange...
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Posted: 55 months ago
It's quite odd why Apple chose to limit the amount of text messages you could hold to 1000... I'd be content with 2000 or so, even more if the limit was 5000.
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