For a growing number of people these days, text and multimedia messaging is a way of life, the preferred way to make plans, update friends, revise schedules, ask for directions, or even propose marriage or dump a spouse.
Helping make all kinds of mobile messaging, including e-mail, more useful, of course, has been the advent of nifty new phones with real keyboards, like the Nokia N97.
As noted periodically here on the Ovi Daily App blog, a variety of apps have become available to help devoted messagers better manage their messaging, so to speak. The latest of these is Best MessageStorer, priced at $1.99 (USD) and developed by Smartphoneware, based in Odessa, Ukraine. It’s designed for the person whose phone has accumulated many SMS, MMS, and e-mail messages – or only a few – and wants to move those items to a computer for safe storage or some other use.
To cut to the chase, MessageStorer collects your messages into a single file of either plain text or CSV (comma-separated values) format. That file can then be kept on your phone or sent through the usual channels to your Windows-based PC or Mac. In addition, the software can sort and filter messages by type, data and time, and sender.
You launch MessageStorer the usual way, from within the Applications screen. Its appearance is pretty much exactly what you’d see in Nokia’s built-in Messaging software: a list of mailboxes such as Inbox, Outbox, Drafts, Sent, and those for any email accounts you may have set up. Touching on any of these mailboxes will open to reveal their contents: again, a familiar list of messages.
Touching on a particular message, however, will not open it for viewing. Instead, all that happens is that a check mark will appear just to the right of the name (sender or recipient) associated with that message. That means the message has been selected for storage. Now, one by one, you can select as many messages as you like this way – all within the current mailbox, that is.
When you’re finished, the app’s Options menu – in the usual, lower-left corner of the touchscreen – will offer a choice of Saving the messages as either a text or CSV file. After you’ve chosen a format, the app will ask you where within the phone this new file should be stored – in the phone’s C: memory or the E: memory card. The latter, with much more room availabe, is probably the best place for such files. Next, you can give the file a name, or use the default name, which will look something like bmessagestorer(17).txt. And finally, after the file’s stored, you’ll be asked if you want to send it somewhere – by SMS, email, or Bluetooth, for instance. Sending via a phone-to-computer USB connection is possible, too.
Now, to go back one step, just where you are about to Save your selected messages: It’s also possible, right there, to Filter your selection by categories such as SMS, MMS, Email, or Other. Or, you can Sort the items by time, Sender, or Type, in either ascending or descending order. Once any Filtering or Sorting is completed, you’re free to proceed with Saving as described.
One other menu option the app offers is to Mark selected messages – or the entire contents of a Mailbox – as either Read or Unread. That could be handy, we can imagine.
Once a file full of mobile messages has been delivered to a PC or Mac computer, you’re free to do what you want with it. Perhaps you just want to archive the file. Common programs such as the PC’s Notepad and the Mac’s TextEdit can open the file for viewing or for cutting and pasting to other programs. Microsoft’s Excel program, meanwhile, can convert CSV files to show up as multiple entries in an electronic spreadsheet. That’s possible because CSV keeps each data field in a message separated from the others. In the end, the possibilities for using these files in a computer may be limited only by your imagination.
One caveat: When this software saves an MMS message, only the text of that message ends up in the resulting file. As most readers are surely aware, photos (and other items) arriving as part of MMS messages may be saved from within the phone’s Messaging function, to your Photos folder, for instance, or to another selected memory location.
The bottom line: Best MessageStorer works just as advertised – straightforwardly and glitch-free. And it may even live up to that first word in its name – a word, we notice, that Smartphoneware boldly tacks onto the front of each of its many titles. In fact, this is the only app we’ve come across, so far, that’s dedicated solely to storing mobile apps. Any others out there? We’re glad to know.
Editor’s Note: There is a version of Best MessageStorer for both Nokia Symbian OS, S60 5.0 devices, as well as for S60 3.X devices. Both versions of the app are priced at $1.99 (USD) in Ovi Store.More information is available on the Smartphoneware website.
Loading ...
India