Get SMS of specific phone number

Question

I am wondering, how can I read sms message for a specific number programmatically? I know how to read sms using content provider but not sure if I should use the "person" column or "address" column or totally different way Please help Thanks

Answer 1

It will list out messages from specified number.

 Uri mSmsinboxQueryUri = Uri.parse("content://sms/inbox");
         Cursor cursor1 = getContentResolver().query(mSmsinboxQueryUri,new String[] { "_id", "thread_id", "address", "person", "date","body", "type" }, null, null, null);
         startManagingCursor(cursor1);
         String[] columns = new String[] { "address", "person", "date", "body","type" };
         if (cursor1.getCount() > 0) {
            String count = Integer.toString(cursor1.getCount());
            while (cursor1.moveToNext()){
                String address = cursor1.getString(cursor1.getColumnIndex(columns[0]));

                if(address.equalsIgnoreCase("number")){ //put your number here
                     String name = cursor1.getString(cursor1.getColumnIndex(columns[1]));
                     String date = cursor1.getString(cursor1.getColumnIndex(columns[2]));
                     String body = cursor1.getString(cursor1.getColumnIndex(columns[3]));
                     String type = cursor1.getString(cursor1.getColumnIndex(columns[4]));

                     Log.d("*******", "body="+body);

               }


             }
         }

But I came across "content://mms-sms/conversations/" I think it will return directly entire conversation of specific number with the help thread_id, check this

Answer 2

You may use SelectionArgs to be more efficient:

String[] phoneNumber = new String[] { "+18839494492" }; //the wanted phone number
Cursor cursor1 = getContentResolver().query(Uri.parse("content://sms/inbox"), new String[] { "_id", "thread_id", "address", "person", "date","body", "type" }, "address=?", phoneNumber, null);

With this change you only get the sms from the wanted number and you have not to crawl through all received SMS.