Only Have Screenshots of the Texts? How to Analyze Them
Reviewed by Jacob Reed, founder of Verity ·
An export of the conversation is always stronger than screenshots. But sometimes screenshots are all there is: the phone is gone, the account is closed, the other person deleted the thread, or the hearing is next week and there is no time. Screenshots can still be read back into a conversation and analyzed. This is how to take them so that works, and what to be honest about afterwards.
How to do it
1.Take full-screen screenshots, in order
Open the conversation, start at the earliest message you need, and screenshot each screen as you scroll down. Let each one overlap the last by a message or two so nothing falls between them. Do not crop them and do not photograph the screen with another phone.
2.Keep the date lines in view
Messaging apps show a date line between days. When one is on screen, include it. Those lines are where the dates in the analysis come from.
3.Pick them all at once
On getverity.report, tap the upload box and choose all the screenshots together from your photos. On a computer, drag them all onto the box.
4.Choose Read my screenshots
They are read on your own device. Nothing is uploaded.
5.Check every message
You are shown each message that was read, with who sent it. Correct anything that came out wrong, name the other person, and continue to the free health score.
What happens to the screenshots
The chat bubbles are found by their colour, and which side a bubble sits on decides who sent it. The text in each bubble is then read. Where two screenshots overlap, the repeated messages are removed so each one is counted once. All of this runs in your browser; the images are never sent anywhere.
It works with light and dark mode, and it has been checked on screenshots from iMessage, Android Messages, WhatsApp and Messenger.
What can go wrong
- A message partly hidden behind the scroll-to-bottom button is skipped as cut off.
- A message that is only a link with a preview card may come through as the card’s text.
- A very large font setting can run words together.
- A crop, a photo of a screen, or a screenshot of a different app may have no bubbles to find.
This is why the review step matters. You see every message before anything is analyzed and can fix or remove any of them.
A PDF of screenshots works too
If someone gave you the screenshots as a PDF, drop the PDF. The images are pulled out of it and read the same way, up to 40 pages at a time.
What screenshots cannot do
A screenshot shows what was on a screen. It does not carry the exact time each message was sent, so the times in a screenshot-based report are estimated from the date lines and marked as approximate, and the report says its source was screenshots. For that reason Verity offers the Standard report from screenshots, not the Forensic one.
A screenshot is also easy to edit, and the other side can say so. Why Screenshots Alone Aren’t Enough for Court goes through the objections, and Screenshot vs. Native Export vs. Forensic Extraction compares the three kinds of evidence.
If you can still export, do that
If the conversation is still on a phone or an account you can reach, an export keeps every message with its real timestamp. The export steps for each app are here. Keep the screenshots as well: together they are stronger than either alone.
With a large pile of screenshots and little time, You Have 700 Screenshots and a Court Date covers how to sort them before you hand them to a lawyer.
This is general information, not legal advice. Verity is not a law firm, and requirements for authenticating a digital record vary by court — talk to an attorney about what your case specifically needs.
Have the screenshots?
Pick them all at once and check what was read. They are read on your device and never uploaded.
Analyze your export →