How to print, save, send Android text messages

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There are many reasons for wanting to print out a text message. Maybe someone sent you some exciting news via SMS, and you’d like to print it out and pin it on your bulletin board. Or maybe someone has sent you directions on how to do something or how to get somewhere, and you want to have it for fast reference. Of course, there could also be times when you’re saving a text as documentation of a conversation or agreement that went awry, and you need it as proof to protect yourself.
Printing is one way to hold onto your text messages. But, if you want to stick with keeping everything on your device, then perhaps you’re just looking to know how to save the text messages to your Android phone so you can pull them up later. You may also want to know how to send precious text messages to someone else so they can have a copy, too, or so they can print it for you from their device.
The good news is that if you have an Android phone, it’s relatively easy to print, save or send a text message. Keep reading below.
If you’re an iPhone user, you can get our iPhone tips in our article: Four ways to print, save and send text messages.
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A person texting on Android (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
If you want to print text messages directly from an Android phone, you’ll need to connect your phone to your printer. However, if you want to print text messages without connecting your phone to a printer, you will need to send the message from your Android phone to the device that’s capable of printing.
Android doesn’t provide a native way to print text messages directly from your inbox. So, you have to take matters into your own hands. There are several strategies you can utilize to print your text messages, and the choice depends on factors such as ease of use, time efficiency and the specific features of your Android device.
Many of these methods involve creating backups or copies of your messages, which can be stored externally (on a computer or in the cloud) rather than on your Android device itself. This is important because if you happen to lose the printed version, you don’t have to worry; you can access these backups to retrieve and print the messages again. However, it’s crucial to note that these backups are typically not stored on your Android device but rather in the location where you created the backup.
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The best way to print, save and send text messages if you have an Android is to take a screenshot of the text message itself. This method is particularly effective for capturing a few screens of text. Why? Because once you have a screenshot, you can do just about anything with it after that. However, if you’re looking to print out a very long thread that may go back many months or years, please refer to the section later in the article for more suitable options.
 Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer. 
Note: If you can’t capture the entire message in one screenshot, you will need to take multiple screenshots of each part of the conversation.
Steps to take a screenshot on Android (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
For this step, your phone will need to be connected directly to your printer. Make sure your Bluetooth/Wi-Fi is on.
 Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer. 
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Steps to print screenshot directly from Android (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
If your Android phone is not connected to your printer, but you have another device that is, then you need to share it with yourself so you can pull it up on another device.
You can also follow these steps if you want to send your screenshot to someone else, either so they can print it for you or just because you want them to have it.
 Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer. 
To send to yourself:
To send to someone else:
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Steps to send the screenshot to someone else or another device to print (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Let’s say that the share icon disappeared quickly after taking the screenshot. Now, you need to pull it up again later. Taking a screenshot automatically saves the text message you took a picture of to your phone. Here’s how you can find it:
 Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer. 
Steps to save and pull up the screenshot to print or send later (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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If you just want to send the text message to someone else, you can forward the specific text message from your conversation to someone else. To do this:
 Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer. 
Note: You can only forward one text at a time.
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Steps to (only) send: Forward the text message (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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Just as iPhone uses iMessage, Android phones use Google Messaging. It may be hard to recognize this on your phone, as it just looks like a standard text messaging app. But you can pull up Google Messaging on your laptop or another device, especially since most Google/Android products are synced if you have a Gmail account.
 Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer. 
Alternatively, you can also take a screenshot of the text message conversation on your laptop following the screenshot directions that are unique for your computer and then print that way.
Finally, you can save text messages to your phone with the help of Google Account storage on Google One. All Android devices come with 15GB of storage for Google One, but other accounts come with free 100GB, depending on a few factors. To back up your text messages (as well as other data from your phone):
 Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer. 
Note: Having “backup” on doesn’t necessarily allow you to view specific text messages. What it does is save all your phone’s data so that if you lose your phone, you can back up the new one with the same data without having to worry about losing anything forever. When you do that, you’ll find those text messages as long as they were there during the backup.
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Steps to (only) save: Back up text messages to your device with Google One (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Here’s an option for extracting and printing messages from an Android phone. For this step, you’ll need Droid Transfer. Droid Transfer can access your Android device’s data and copy it to your PC or print it out. The software can find any SMS or MMS message conversations, including images, emojis and timestamps on your device, save them to your PC or print them out. Droid Transfer is capable of handling and printing text messages that span days, months or even years.
In today’s world, most human interaction happens via a phone, whether on video chat, a messaging app or good ole SMS text messaging (as well as MMS, which is for picture messages). For one reason or another, you may want to print these messages or know how to send and save them. Though there are many different ways to do this on Android, taking a screenshot is by far the most versatile option.
Have you ever printed a text message from your Android phone? What’s your preferred way to save or send messages? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.
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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.