Silence backup parse

I wanted to export my Silence messages as I'm going to stop using the app. Most of my contacts had moved to more secure messengers such as Signal or Matrix anyway.

There are unpatched vulnerabilities with some of the libraries Silence, uses. The software does largely seem unmaintained.

Additionally SMS metadata cannot be secured, and SMS/MMS should be avoided in general.

This script will read in your SilencePlaintextBackup.xml and export the SMS messages out into a readable format which you then may store somewhere secure such as:

========================================
SMS from <you> to <recipient>
Sent:     YYYY-MM-DD 00:00:00

message

========================================

What isn't exported

It should be noted however certain data does not exist in the SilencePlaintextBackup.xml export format such as:

• The "Sent" date on messages that are recieved from a contact
• The timezone GMT+00:00 on both "Sent" and "Received"
• MMS text and pictures issue #597

Alternatives

I'd recommend if you must use SMS, switching to one of these alternatives:

• AOSP Messenger app with SMS Import / Export

Or a Matrix bridge (if you run your own Matrix server):

• Android SMS