The manual extraction method involves simply scrolling through the data on the device and viewing the data on the phone directly through the use of the device's keypad or touchscreen. The information discovered is then photographically documented. The extraction process is fast and easy to use, and it will work on almost every phone. This method is prone to human error, such as missing certain data due to unfamiliarity with the interface. At this level, it is not possible to recover deleted information and grab all the data.

There are some tools, such as Project-A-Phone, that have been developed to help an examiner to easily document a manual extraction. However, this might also result in the modification of data. For example, viewing an unread SMS will mark it as read.