Signal has announced a feature users have been requesting for a long time: backups of their chats, documents, photos, and more. For years, if you lost or broke your phone, your entire Signal message history simply vanished, which could be a massive pain for anyone who relies on the app for important conversations.
Signal says the feature dubbed "secure backups" will first roll out in beta for Android users so the company can test things out before a wider release on iOS and Desktop in the "near future".
Secure backups are opt-in and end-to-end encrypted according to Signal, and there are two tiers available: free and paid. The company"s approach is grounded in its non-profit structure, which means it cannot just absorb the high cost of data storage by selling user data or ads, unlike its larger competitors.
Backing up your text messages and recent media, which includes photos, GIFs, files, and attachments, from up to the last 45 days is free. The free tier gives you 100 MiB of compressed message storage.
If you want to back up your media history beyond that 45-day window, you would have to reach for your wallet for the $1.99 per month plan. Keep in mind that Signal states this price is not static and could change. The paid storage size limit is 100GB.
For security, Signal says it uses a 64-character recovery key, which is different from your PIN, to let you decrypt your backup. This key is the only way to unlock your conversations; if you lose it, you lose everything. Not even Signal can help you, as the company cannot access the key or the backup on its servers. The company recommends storing it in a password manager or writing it down.
You can learn more via the official announcement blog post.