Text Curator

Support

Help for opening your Messages archive, searching conversations, recovering historical attachments, and exporting your records.

System requirements

Text Curator requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

Opening your Messages archive

  1. Launch Text Curator.
  2. Choose your Apple Messages folder when prompted.
  3. Grant Contacts access only if you want Text Curator to show familiar contact names instead of raw phone numbers or email addresses.

Text Curator uses sandboxed, user-granted access and opens the Messages database read-only.

Try the Sample Archive

Choose Open Sample Archive from the welcome screen to explore Text Curator without opening your own Messages data. The sample archive contains synthetic conversations and can be used to test search and export features.

An attachment is missing

Text Curator only previews attachments that are available locally on your Mac. Older Messages attachments may still be referenced in your conversation history even when the file itself is no longer stored locally.

When Text Curator shows a missing attachment, use Find in Messages. Text Curator can copy a nearby search phrase and open Apple Messages so you can locate the original conversation. If Messages offers a download control, download the attachment there, return to Text Curator, and use Check Again.

Text Curator does not automatically download missing iCloud attachments and does not guess which local file belongs to an unavailable attachment.

Search does not find a recent message

Allow Text Curator a moment to update its local search index after opening or refreshing the Messages archive. You can also rerun the search from the main search field.

Exports

Text Curator supports PDF, Word, and CSV exports. Large conversations can take time to export. Export summaries distinguish attachment references that were available locally, unavailable locally, or Messages system payloads when the export was created.

Masking selected content

Text Curator can save text and image masking choices separately from your original Messages data and apply them to supported exports. These features never alter the source Messages database or original attachment files.

Important: Text Curator Standard should not be treated as a forensic secure-redaction system. If an export must satisfy legal, regulatory, evidentiary, or irreversible-redaction requirements, verify the resulting document with tools and procedures appropriate to that purpose.

Reset Text Curator's local data

If you need to clear Text Curator's saved search index, masking data, saved searches, and remembered Messages-folder permission, use Delete Text Curator Local Data and Quit inside the app.

Still need help?

Visit the Contact page and include your macOS version, Text Curator version, what you were trying to do, and any error message you saw.