I have over 7,000 sms messages stored on my E71 under My Folders in different subfolders.
I have read countless frustrated posts on various Nokia forums from early 2007 up to this week in October 2010. They are full of irritated customers - and there are so many useless answers that never give a "proper" solution.
Ever tried moving 7,000+ sms messages on an E71 from an encrypted memory card back into the Inbox?
Forget the fact that the Inbox cannot hold that many messages.
Nokia has had years to solve the problem of saving SMS messages from "My Folders" for backing up to a PC.
Nokia has not done so, for reasons best known by them.
Perhaps Nokia do not know how to do this?
Or more likely, they just don't care about unhappy and disgruntled customers.
I decided to give a step by step account in full detail of the below, because so many people were looking to solve this problem, and I know how frustrating it is for non-technical minded people to follow brief advice without examples.
I have finally, FINALLY, unbelievably, found a way to save all my sms messages from ALL my folders into NEAT and TIDY - files.
The messages from one folder can ALL be put into ONE large CSV or TEXT file, or filtered and just certain ones saved.
I am SO relieved that I finally have a way to back up my SMS's.
Shame, shame, and more shame on Nokia for neglecting this obviously quite easy to solve problem for so long.
This is how I did it.
I Found a free application - with no limitations on this website:
http://www.symbian-freeware.com/download-message-storer.html
The program is called: Message Storer
This is their write up:
Message Storer v1.04 for Symbian s60 5th edition is a utility that allows you to save all of your SMS, MMS and emails in a text file or CSV format. You can also arrange and sort them, create filters or preview the message details. It is really useful and easy accessible.
It does EXACTLY what it says!
This is the file I downloaded: messagestorer_1_04_ signed.sisx (It is about 186KB)
I installed the file, and I ran it. (Please look in these forums for info on installing a Symbian s60 program by using PC Suite)
I believe it is a 15-days fully functional demo version.
A screen opened up that showed:
Inbox
Outbox
Drafts
Sent
My Folders
Windows Live
Email
- I Opened "My Folders" - it took about 10 seconds to open. The Nokia Message software take about 45 seconds to open this.
- I next selected the subfolder "Important" that had about 2,500+ messages.
- It took about 45 seconds to open the folder (about half the time it takes Nokia's sms reader to open the same folder)
- I clicked on "Options" then on "Mark" and then "Mark All" (This step is important, otherwise it only saves the one highlighted message).
- Then clicked on "Options" then "Save Messages" then "as Text" (the other option being "as CSV")
- Save to "Phone Memory" or "Memory Card" and I selected "Memory Card"
- It gave a "File Name" prompt and a field for a file name to save to. I modified the filename to what I wanted, and clicked "OK".
- It took about 2 minutes to save.
- Next came a message saying "Do you want to send saved file?" which had the options of Multimedia/email/Bluetooth/Infrared.
- I chose "No" - not to do this.
- It saved the file to the root directory of the Memory Card. In my case this was E:
- I already had my phone connected to my PC using a USB cable in PC Suite Mode.
- I had Windows File Explorer open and on the Nokia Phone Browser icon (I think this is part of what gets installed with PC Suite) and open to my phone memory E"
- I looked in the folder, and sadly, no file there. I right clicked in the folder, and chose "Refresh" - and there was the file!
- I right clicked on the text file, chose to Cut it, and pasted it to my Desk Top, and opened it.
30,000+ lines formatted and laid out beautifully as below!
======================================================================
Message type: SMS
To/From: Persons Name
Detail from: +##########
Detail to:
Date/Time: 21st September 2010 / 1:26:18 pm
Folder: Important
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Text of SMS Message
======================================================================
After years and years, I finally have a back up of all my SMS messages, and I can clear them off my phone.
hi its one way solution. My Nokia E63 is not opening the text message so i need to take the backup of messages as well as need to restore them back. If i will use nokia pc suit it will restore some setting file which cause the problem again. use Message storer i can store all the message in .CSV file. but how to get back in nokia e63 after formating. Please help 
