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PythonSQLiteReportLabPySide6Homebrew
iPhone Message Retriever reads the SMS and iMessage database out of an iPhone backup — extracted, raw, or encrypted with a password — and lists the conversations it finds. Any conversation can be exported to a formatted PDF via ReportLab. A USB mode drives external tooling to create an on-demand backup first, then reads it back through the same path.
The project ships both a CLI (iphone-msg) and an optional PySide6 desktop GUI, with PDF, USB, and GUI dependencies split into extras so a plain install stays lightweight. It installs through a personal Homebrew tap, where the formula builds from source into a Python virtualenv.
Key Highlights
- ▸Reads extracted, raw, and password-encrypted iPhone backups
- ▸Exports conversations to formatted PDFs via ReportLab
- ▸USB mode creates an on-demand backup, then reads it
- ▸Optional PySide6 GUI alongside the CLI
- ▸Installable from a personal Homebrew tap