Reference
How EvidentlySo transcripts work
How the app saves messages, what a transcript shows, and how to check one. This page is about how the product works in general. Each part of the PDF itself is on What’s in a PDF.
How messages are saved
The EvidentlySo app runs on a Windows PC. An Android phone connects to it through Google Messages for web. An iPhone is backed up to the PC with Apple’s free Apple Devices app, and EvidentlySo reads that backup. It copies each conversation the phone’s owner chooses, word for word, from the phone’s own message storage, and saves the copy to the owner’s own cloud storage account. Messages are copied, never typed in; only the owner’s own name and number come from the owner or the phone itself.
Each conversation has one set of snapshots. An update adds messages that arrived since the last save. Nothing already saved is ever removed or changed, so a message saved and later deleted on the phone stays in the snapshots.
What a transcript contains
A transcript is a PDF made from one conversation’s snapshots, over one unbroken stretch of dates. No dates are skipped inside it; two conversations or two separate periods make two PDFs.
- Page 1 is a short header: the people in the conversation and their numbers, the dates from the first message to the last (or the dates or messages chosen), how many messages, photos, videos, voice messages and other files, the phone, the time zone, and when the PDF was generated. The messages start on page 2.
- The messages, in the order the phone recorded them, each with its sender, date, time and a message number (MSG-001).
- Photos as saved, scaled to fit the page, never cropped; videos as a still with a play mark and their length; voice messages, files and contact cards as simple boxes.
- Reactions, replies and edits aren’t shown yet. They’re planned for iPhone messages read with the desktop app. Android’s message storage doesn’t keep these, so Android transcripts don’t show them.
- On every page: the Transcript ID, the page number, a record code, and where to check the file.
A transcript doesn’t say when the messages were saved.
Names and numbers
The phone owner’s name and number come from the owner or the phone itself. Other people’s numbers come from the messages themselves. Their names come from the phone’s contacts; a number with no saved contact shows as the number alone.
Times
Phones record the exact moment each message was sent or received. A transcript shows those moments to the second, in one time zone named on page 1, for example Mountain Time, with MST or MDT depending on the date. When clocks go back in the fall, the hour from 1:00 to 2:00 AM happens twice; in that hour, times carry MST or MDT so the two can be told apart.
Edited and unsent messages
Phones handle these differently. Android’s message storage doesn’t record edits or unsent messages. iPhone records keep an edited message’s versions; a transcript shows the last one. A message unsent before it was first saved isn’t in the snapshots, so it isn’t in a transcript.
Checking a transcript
When the app generates a PDF, it records the file’s fingerprint with EvidentlySo. Every page carries a record code and the line “Check this file at EvidentlySo.com/Verify”. On Verify a PDF, anyone can drop in a copy and see whether it’s the exact file EvidentlySo generated, and when it was first recorded.
Any change to the file gives it a new fingerprint, so a changed copy won’t match. That includes harmless changes, such as printing to PDF or saving it again from a viewer. Keeping a PDF verifiable
Limits of a phone’s message storage
- A message deleted from the phone before it was first saved can’t be in the snapshots.
- Pictures and videos kept only in a cloud service, and not on the phone, may not be available; they show as “Photo not available” or “Video not available”.
- Some encrypted chat (RCS) messages may not be included.
- Messages in other apps, such as WhatsApp or Signal, aren’t included.
- The app saves a copy of the messages; it isn’t a forensic image of the phone.
Citing a message
Each transcript has a Transcript ID, such as T4250, and each message a number, such as MSG-012. Cite a message with both: “T4250 MSG-012”. Message numbers belong to one transcript; another transcript of the same conversation may number messages differently.
Asking for a transcript
Attorneys and evaluators can ask a parent to generate a transcript of a conversation for the dates they need: one PDF for each conversation, usually as whole days. Ready-made requests are on the Attorneys and Evaluators pages.
For later messages, ask for an updated transcript. The parent updates the snapshots and generates a new PDF, with its own Transcript ID. Messages in the earlier transcript are still in the snapshots, so they’re in the new one too for the same dates.