Epistolaire vs SMS Import / Export
Side-by-side comparison of two open source alternatives
Epistolaire
Epistolaire dumps SMSes AND MMSes AND their photos to a JSON file on the phone storage (so you can copy it whatever way you like, rsync, Syncthing, ownCloud - you name it). There's a tool to convert it to pretty HTML pages if you want to without effort. And if you know a little know a tiny bit of development, the JSON format is straightforward to use.
SMS Import / Export
SMS Import / Export imports and exports SMS and MMS messages, call logs, contacts, and blocked numbers from and to (ND)JSON / ZIP files. (Contacts import and export are currently functional but considered experimental.) It does not require root. The primary author of SMS Import / Export is Thomas More. Others have contributed code and translations. The software is copyright 2021-2025, and is released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. SMS Import / Export is a sibling project to sms-db, a Linux tool to build an SQLite database out of collections of SMS and MMS messages in various formats. sms-db will hopefully eventually be able to import ZIP files created by SMS Import / Export, and to export its database to ZIP files that can be imported by SMS Import / Export.
| Feature | Epistolaire | SMS Import / Export |
|---|---|---|
| License | Unlicense | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| Install sources | F-Droid | F-DroidGitHubIzzyOnDroid |
| Categories | ProductivitySMSMessaging | ProductivitySMSMessaging |
| Features | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking |
| Platforms | Android | Android |
| Website | ||
| Source code |