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Unacceptable iMazing license policy

H

HDFan

Contributor
Original poster
From iMazing Support:

Linking a device to an iMazing Personal Device License is a permanent action,

A license can be transferred only

if the device is broken beyond repair, replaced via warranty or AppleCare, stolen, or something similar that is out of your control.

If you are on the iPhone upgrade program with a new phone each year you have to buy a new license each year as the license on the old phone which was traded in is not transferable. Any device upgrade will require paying for a new license.

As much as I might like the product I find this licensing policy to be unacceptable.
 
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HDFan said:
If you are on the iPhone upgrade program with a new phone each year you have to buy a new license each year as the license on the old phone which was traded in is not transferable. Any device upgrade will require paying for a new license.
Click to expand...
At least you understand the licensing and will not be surprised when you change devices - like I was the first time I changed iPhone. If you buy one at a time it is an extra 2.5% to the price of an iPhone.
HDFan said:
As much as I might like the product I find this licensing policy to be unacceptable.
Click to expand...
For myself, I think this licensing method (lifetime of device) is easy to understand and is acceptable. Of course, I would like it cheaper.

Try the annual subscription as linked by @bogdanw. It is cheaper if you replace your iPhone every year and covers more devices.

EDIT:
From what I can see the "device lifetime" licenses are legacy. From within iMazing I can purchase additional licenses at AU$50 for one. But this is not directly accessible from the iMazing website where the "store" only offers the annual subscription at AU$40 (after 50% discount) per year for 5 devices.
 
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gilby101 said:
At least you understand the licensing and will not be surprised when you change devices - like I was the first time I changed iPhone. If you buy one at a time it is an extra 2.5% to the price of an iPhone.

For myself, I think this licensing method (lifetime of device) is easy to understand and is acceptable. Of course, I would like it cheaper.

Try the annual subscription as linked by @bogdanw. It is cheaper if you replace your iPhone every year and covers more devices.

EDIT:
From what I can see the "device lifetime" licenses are legacy. From within iMazing I can purchase additional licenses at AU$50 for one. But this is not directly accessible from the iMazing website where the "store" only offers the annual subscription at AU$40 (after 50% discount) per year for 5 devices.
Click to expand...
Apologies for resurrecting old thread, but this seems a good place to ask.

I have had iMazing for a few years and changed my devices since I started. I understand and accept the licensing model that a new device requires a new license. I started with five slots. My problem is that the "licensed devices" list shows four devices and says I have one device slot left and I can't see how to make one of my current devices use it the spare slot. I will need to buy additional to cover our current devices, but reluctant to do this until I have assigned the unused slot.

The instructions say to use any of the premium features like 'restore a backup', and you will be prompted, but I am not, at least not in the first two screens that appear after selecting the restore option. I am concerned about actually starting a restore, which I don't want to do.

On the other hand, maybe there is no point in assigning the spare slot to one of my current devices, until I actually need a premium feature?

Any help much appreciated.
 
Just commenting here with some alternatives -

I used to use PhoneView to copy Messages off my iPhone. It was a great app; it let me save an entire conversation as a PDF, with a folder containing all the attachments from the conversation. Unfortunately, PhoneView has been unmaintained for years and it looks like iOS 26 finally broke it.

All I want is to copy Messages from the iPhone once a year. I don't need any additional functionality. The PhoneView developers recommended iMazing, but I don't want to pay a $30/year subscription for this; I much prefer a lifetime license. TouchCopy sells a lifetime license for $70, but that's still really expensive.

Fortunately, I found two free open-source alternatives on GitHub:

iMessage Exporter (https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter) works from the Mac's messages, not the iPhone's, but if you're storing them in iCloud then they should be the same thing. It exports all conversations to HTML files, with a folder containing all of the attachments. There's not as much control for archiving specific conversations, but that's not a deal-breaker for me. It seems to be thorough and well maintained.

Phosphor (https://github.com/momenbasel/Phosphor) is a very new app, and it's still got a lot of bugs, but the developer (apparently assisted by AI) has been making a lot of fixes and is receptive to feedback. It's a very pretty app that allows for backing up the phone and then saving conversations (and attachments) in various formats from the backup. I don't completely trust this app yet and I'll continue filing bug reports on it, but it may become a worthy replacement for PhoneView.
 
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bkendig said:
Just commenting here with some alternatives -

I used to use PhoneView to copy Messages off my iPhone. It was a great app; it let me save an entire conversation as a PDF, with a folder containing all the attachments from the conversation. Unfortunately, PhoneView has been unmaintained for years and it looks like iOS 26 finally broke it.

All I want is to copy Messages from the iPhone once a year. I don't need any additional functionality. The PhoneView developers recommended iMazing, but I don't want to pay a $30/year subscription for this; I much prefer a lifetime license. TouchCopy sells a lifetime license for $70, but that's still really expensive.

Fortunately, I found two free open-source alternatives on GitHub:

iMessage Exporter (https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter) works from the Mac's messages, not the iPhone's, but if you're storing them in iCloud then they should be the same thing. It exports all conversations to HTML files, with a folder containing all of the attachments. There's not as much control for archiving specific conversations, but that's not a deal-breaker for me. It seems to be thorough and well maintained.

Phosphor (https://github.com/momenbasel/Phosphor) is a very new app, and it's still got a lot of bugs, but the developer (apparently assisted by AI) has been making a lot of fixes and is receptive to feedback. It's a very pretty app that allows for backing up the phone and then saving conversations (and attachments) in various formats from the backup. I don't completely trust this app yet and I'll continue filing bug reports on it, but it may become a worthy replacement for PhoneView.
Click to expand...
Thanks that is very useful info! I also came to iMazing from Phoneview, and iMazing feels a bit like overkill for me. So will investigate those options.
 
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bkendig said:
Just commenting here with some alternatives -

I used to use PhoneView to copy Messages off my iPhone. It was a great app; it let me save an entire conversation as a PDF, with a folder containing all the attachments from the conversation. Unfortunately, PhoneView has been unmaintained for years and it looks like iOS 26 finally broke it.

All I want is to copy Messages from the iPhone once a year. I don't need any additional functionality. The PhoneView developers recommended iMazing, but I don't want to pay a $30/year subscription for this; I much prefer a lifetime license. TouchCopy sells a lifetime license for $70, but that's still really expensive.

Fortunately, I found two free open-source alternatives on GitHub:

iMessage Exporter (https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter) works from the Mac's messages, not the iPhone's, but if you're storing them in iCloud then they should be the same thing. It exports all conversations to HTML files, with a folder containing all of the attachments. There's not as much control for archiving specific conversations, but that's not a deal-breaker for me. It seems to be thorough and well maintained.

Phosphor (https://github.com/momenbasel/Phosphor) is a very new app, and it's still got a lot of bugs, but the developer (apparently assisted by AI) has been making a lot of fixes and is receptive to feedback. It's a very pretty app that allows for backing up the phone and then saving conversations (and attachments) in various formats from the backup. I don't completely trust this app yet and I'll continue filing bug reports on it, but it may become a worthy replacement for PhoneView.
Click to expand...

I tried Phosphor and it won't launch on my M4 Mini 26.5.1...immediate spinning rainbow. Any tips?

iMessage Exporter won't replace Phoneview or iMazing as it doesn't do WhatsApp.
 
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