Android API allows programmers to retrieve the SMS messages. So, there are lot of android applications available in the market to deal with SMS backup and restore.
I'm going to explain about SMS Backup & Restore android application. It's a very good application to backup and restore the SMS messages on android. Let's say, you want to update your phone software with the latest available version and you will be losing all the user pref data like contacts, call logs, and SMS etc.
This is a very good application if you're looking to backup the SMS. This will create an XML file on your SD card when you take a backup i.e.; you can even read the information on the PC directly since it's an XML format.
It's a free application in Google market. However, you can find the apk below which you can directly install on your device.
The home screen of this app will be as shown below
 |
| SMS Backup & Restore Home page |
You can find various options like "Backup", "Restore", "View", "Search", "Delete Backups", "Delete Messages", and "Donate" buttons on the home screen of this application.
Backup: You can take the backup of the current SMS messages. When you chose this options, it prompts you for a name which is essentially going to be the name of the xml file on the SD card under "SMSBackupRestore" folder. Below are the screenshot while taking the backup
 |
| SMS Backup & Restore backing up |
Restore: You can restore the data that has already been taken as the backup. When you chose this option, user will be prompted with a popup of all the existing backup files which have been taken so far. It will proceed for restoring the SMS, when user confirms the dialog. Here the screenshot when restoring.
 |
| SMS Backup & Restore restore |
View: Sometimes you might want to find out a particular SMS without even restoring it. In which case, this option lets you do that. All you have to do is just choose the file from which you would like to view the SMS, the following screen will show you the SMS details. Here the screenshots for this
 |
| SMS Backup & Restore view screen |
Search: This will let you search the SMS messages that have been taken as the backup. Here the screenshot
 |
| SMS Backup & Restore search messages |
Delete Backups: This will allow you to delete previously backed up data file. In fact, you can do this directly on your SD card as I mentioned above as it's just the file that has been created on SD card under "SMSBackupRestore" folder. Here the screenshots for deleting backups
 |
| SMS Backup & Restore deleting backups |
Delete messages: This will let you delete your SMS log history on your device.
 |
| SMS Backup & Restore deleting messages |
Donate: Another feature to donate whatever you can to the developer.
You can download this application from Market
Thanks for reading this. Please drop a comment if you like this post.