Wow look... View Text Message Backup in Outlook!?

[Stuart Akers]

Just bull****. No text messages are ever backed up in cloud. At least for me. I have the setting on in my phone and in outlook, no matter what "b" tricks I try I can't see any of the text messages. Why is MS making this so hard or does their software just suck? With age old Nokia Suite you could easily see and browse all your text messages on your PC.

I have to agree, I've tried the URL trick and while I'm sure it does work, I think my SMS messages just aren't being backed up. This is probably related to the Microsoft synch error 80C805E2 which causes the Microsoft account not to synch emails and calendar items if the text message backup is enabled.

I'm not too sure why MS don't offer a simple mechanism for viewing the backups either. Sort of defeats the purpose of having a backup really, if someone is cautious enough to want to back up their data, surely they would like a way to confirm that it has worked. I'd really like to see a simple option to backup everything to file(s) either on the phone or on a computer.

 

[ARMAAN GAGARIN]

Great..
It Works..!!!
:smile::smile::smile::smile:

 

[skiridolphin92]

Hi there.
Thank you so so much for this advice. It took me a while to work it but I finally managed to save the messages I wanted.
When I have shifted the messages over it is only the messages that I have received - does anyone know if it possible to shift the messages I have sent as well??
I just want to make sure that the message threads and conversations I have saved make sense.
Thanks!!!!

 

[True Dee]

Here's what worked for me:

1. Click Messaging History.
2. In the address bar, delete everything after &fid= including the b. Mine was actually much longer than all the other examples.
3. Press Enter

Hope this helps!

 

[EveliinaS]

It doesn?t bring service-messages back
Like deals/offers/information messages, only normal text messages.
Do you happen to know if these special messages are somehow able to bring back?:unhappysweat:

 

[Ashley Baker2]

What if my URL doesn't have the &as=1?

 

[LisaNelmes]

Hi rly:

 

[Ashley Baker2]

same here :-(

 

[48243]

Well, I can't even see 'messaging history'. Anyone any idea why this is? Has this feature been removed?

 

[gggrohit]

I could see the text messages but all of a sudden it stopped but i can see pictures contacts etc...Why? Need quick answer..someone can help???

 

[genuine555]

Sweet! This worked, basically,
- login to outlook.com
- click on messaging history
- remove the "b" at the end of the URL
- click on Arrange By
- click on Conversation view

worked for me Thanks!

Yeay ! This works for me...none of the previous did though, kept fiddeling with it though, and now I can see all my messages and move them into a seperate folder !

Only hasstle is the mails mingled with them...


I truly hope we can expect this to be officially implemented in outlook one day.

 

[sans38]

messaging history folder not showing

 

[soniatew]

Yayyyyyyyyyyy! Finally, this worked for me!! Thanks!!!!
I also took the advice to shift my text msg history to a new folder on outlook too!

...... Seriously, why do we need to go thru the hassle of reading countless threads / forums to find out the answer to backing up our SMSes??!?
MICROSOFT NEEDS TO FIX THIS ASAP and save us the trouble! They should allow us to manually or via desktop apps, to SYNC or BACKUP our TEXTS etc TO OUR DESKTOP/PCs! >(

 

[anon(123856)]

Just bull****. No text messages are ever backed up in cloud. At least for me. I have the setting on in my phone and in outlook, no matter what "b" tricks I try I can't see any of the text messages. Why is MS making this so hard or does their software just suck? With age old Nokia Suite you could easily see and browse all your text messages on your PC.

I think you might be missing the point of text backup. What it does do is restore all your text messages if and when you perform a hard reset. I personally can attest to the fact that restoring text messages works as advertised. I've done two hard resets and both times my texts were completely restored.

 

[genuine555]

I think you might be missing the point of text backup. What it does do is restore all your text messages if and when you perform a hard reset. I personally can attest to the fact that restoring text messages works as advertised. I've done two hard resets and both times my texts were completely restored.

Yeah that's fully correct. But I also think you are missing the point that Spedez was trying to communicate.
He kind of meant we "should" be able to have some manual control over what we backup and restore...
He is simply frustrated for lack of such control.

The feature implemented in WP currently only allows this kind of "blind" backup and restore, where we never even "see" what is being backed up, let alone give us a choice of what we want to restore and what we want to delete from the backup, etc...

For instance, a thread has been started here couple days ago about this, and ppl aren't able to delete some text messages from their backup that they don't want to see restored anymore...but because of the complete lack of such control, those unwanted texts, once backed up, keep coming back after each restore.

And I must agree with Spedez to some point, although there is not much we can do about it. Implementing a feature that can never even be visually confirmed, will eventually and innevitably cause issues.

 

[link68759]

Yeah that's fully correct. But I also think you are missing the point that Spedez was trying to communicate.
He kind of meant we "should" be able to have some manual control over what we backup and restore...
He is simply frustrated for lack of such control.

The feature implemented in WP currently only allows this kind of "blind" backup and restore, where we never even "see" what is being backed up, let alone give us a choice of what we want to restore and what we want to delete from the backup, etc...

For instance, a thread has been started here couple days ago about this, and ppl aren't able to delete some text messages from their backup that they don't want to see restored anymore...but because of the complete lack of such control, those unwanted texts, once backed up, keep coming back after each restore.

And I must agree with Spedez to some point, although there is not much we can do about it. Implementing a feature that can never even be visually confirmed, will eventually and innevitably cause issues.

90% sure you just delete the texts from your phone, changes are synced to the backup.

 

[genuine555]

90% sure you just delete the texts from your phone, changes are synced to the backup.

That's indeed what should be happening in "theory", but these threads say it isn't the case at all in "practice" :

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/265706-question-regarding-sms-backup.html (post #4)

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/239844-text-backup-not-backing-up-properly.html


Recapulating the above :

Implementing a feature that can never even be visually confirmed, will eventually and innevitably cause issues.

 

[link68759]

That's indeed what should be happening in "theory", but these threads say it isn't the case at all in "practice" :

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/265706-question-regarding-sms-backup.html (post #4)

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/239844-text-backup-not-backing-up-properly.html


Recapulating the above :

Well it works for me, things I've deleted are gone, and you can easily review what is being backed up- hard reset, see what appears. Not ideal, perhaps, but hard resetting also coincides with the only time you'll ever need the backup, so it's not as obtuse as it might sound.

If you've hard reset once, then the text backup isn't working like you think it should, hard resetting a few more times to observe the behavior is trivial.

 

[genuine555]

Not ideal, perhaps, but hard resetting also coincides with the only time you'll ever need the backup, so it's not as obtuse as it might sound.

Not really true. Lots of ppl backup their sms beforehand to prevent loosing certain texts.
If those ppl happen to have accidentally deleted one of those important text messages, they are forced to do a hard reset.

Whereas, if they had the necessary control, they could restore just that one message they had accidentally deleted.
And that is only ONE of many many scenario's...

Again, blind backup like this is very very limited, and is really bound to cause some issues in the long run for a lot of ppl.

 

[anon(123856)]

Yeah that's fully correct. But I also think you are missing the point that Spedez was trying to communicate.
He kind of meant we "should" be able to have some manual control over what we backup and restore...
He is simply frustrated for lack of such control.

The feature implemented in WP currently only allows this kind of "blind" backup and restore, where we never even "see" what is being backed up, let alone give us a choice of what we want to restore and what we want to delete from the backup, etc...

For instance, a thread has been started here couple days ago about this, and ppl aren't able to delete some text messages from their backup that they don't want to see restored anymore...but because of the complete lack of such control, those unwanted texts, once backed up, keep coming back after each restore.

And I must agree with Spedez to some point, although there is not much we can do about it. Implementing a feature that can never even be visually confirmed, will eventually and innevitably cause issues.

I'm not sure how you got all that out of his post. While I won't disagree that text message backup could certainly be improved, I was merely trying to communicate the fact that I don't believe that MS promised anything but being able to restore after a reset or transfer them to a new phone. Spedez response seemed to indicate that MS promised all this additional functionality and failed to deliver it when I don't believe that is the case. This is directly from the MS WP8 site. Back up my stuff | Windows Phone How-to (United States)

"Text messages

You can automatically save your SMS and MMS messages to the cloud. That way, the next time you get a new Windows Phone, you can restore them all when you set up the phone. When you delete your messages from your phone, they'll be deleted from the cloud as well, so you're always in sync."

I'm in full agreement, I would love to see a more fully featured back up. I'm only saying they gave us what they said they did.