Is there a way that I can download a long string of messages then open it in Pages?

On a Mac, messages are in sent and received with the Messages app.

Where are the messages you want to download and what app created them?

You can copy and past all the messages you want into a word processing app. You certainly can into a Word document.

merarkmur94 wrote:

Yes all my devices are synced up, I want to transfer all of them into a pages document so that I can edit, format, and might be able to eventually publish them in some form. I would like to preserve the way the texts appear in the messages app.

Can't you just select them like any other text and then copy/paste into a blank pages doc?

merarkmur94 wrote:

No that doesn't work - or at least I cannot make it work. I can only select one message at a time. I want to copy out or download a year's worth and then open them in pages

See if this could be useful:

https://imazing.com/transfer-iphone-text-messages-to-computer

I have a similar need too. I have 6 months of Text Messages between a medical provider and me involving a medical issue I have. I need to do a large copy & paste of maybe 50-75 Messages with many including photos. I have been using the copy and paste into Pages but it is tedious work.

Select the person on the left half of the Message app where there is an associated threaded conversation and then File menu : Print… : PDF : Save as PDF. You will now have the full conversation exchange with that person.

There is no other format available to you and although you can select a single message, then press the cmd-key to add another message to that selection, this would be not be the best use of your time copying and pasting into Pages for large blocks of messages.

Tell Apple what missing features you'd like restored or new features added to the system via Feedback - macOS - Apple.  

Have you synchronized your devices? With sync, all my messages show on all my users. We have five Macs and they are have the same messages for any given user.