Custody disputes
Your own complete record of what was said, kept before a phone is wiped or replaced.
The problem
In a custody matter, the texts between the two of you are the record. They are also the first thing to vanish: a retention setting, a new phone, a factory reset. Screenshots are partial, easy to dispute, and easy to lose.
Why Message Vault helps
- Merges every source on your Mac: the live Messages database and every iPhone backup, old and new.
- Raw phone numbers and email addresses stay beside the names, so the record does not depend on how a contact was saved.
- Once the manifest is sealed, any change to the archive breaks the chain and shows up on verification.
- The app never deletes anything. There is no delete operation.
- The vault lives on a drive you own. Nothing is uploaded unless you choose the encrypted backup, and only you hold the key.
How to do it
- Back up your iPhone to your Mac with Finder. Older backups already on the Mac count too.
- Add the Messages database and each backup as a source, scan, and check the coverage view for gaps.
- Seal the manifest, write down the chain head, and give your attorney a copy of the vault.
Message Vault reads the Messages database on a Mac and the iPhone backups made on that Mac with Finder or iTunes. It does not pull messages from a phone over the air. The manifest proves the archive has not changed since it was sealed. It does not prove the archive was complete or truthful at that moment, and its timestamp is the Mac’s own clock, not a trusted time source. It is not a certified forensic tool and we make no claim about whether a court will accept what it produces. That is a question for your attorney.
$29 per year, per Mac. 14-day free trial. Cancel any time. Requires macOS 14 or later.
Other use cases: Family memories · Corporations · Executive teams · Legal cases · Estate and executors · Journalists and researchers · Switching Macs or phones · macOS deleted my messages · Small business owners