Losing a phone can mean losing years of conversations. Signal is rolling out a new secure backup feature to help users keep their messages safe without giving up privacy.
The problem with lost chats
Signal has long avoided cloud backups because they create privacy risks. Storing chats on a company’s servers can expose personal data if that service is hacked or pressured by governments. Until now, Signal only allowed local backups stored on a user’s phone or computer. This worked for privacy but left people at risk of losing their chat history if their device was lost or damaged.
With the new secure backup system, Signal says users can protect their conversations while keeping end-to-end encryption intact. No one, including Signal, can read the backups.
Free and paid options
The feature includes a free tier and a paid tier. Free accounts can store up to 100 mebibytes (MiB) of message data and the last 45 days of media. This is enough for most text-based conversations and recent photos or videos.
For larger storage, Signal is offering a subscription for $1.99 per month. Paid accounts can store up to 100 gigabytes (GB) of encrypted data. Users can upgrade or downgrade at any time, and payments are processed in a way that preserves privacy. Signal does not see who pays or how much space each account is using.
How it works
When a user turns on secure backups, Signal generates a 64-digit recovery key. This key is the only way to access the backup. Signal cannot reset or recover the key if it is lost. Users must write it down or store it somewhere safe before activating the feature.
The backup covers messages, media, contacts, settings, and other account data. However, there are some limits. Messages that were set to disappear within 24 hours are not included. View-once messages are also excluded. Signal says this protects the privacy expectations of people who send time-sensitive or single-use content.
Rolling out to users
Secure backups are being rolled out gradually. Users will see an option to enable the feature in the app settings as it becomes available. Signal says it designed the system to keep privacy protections strong while solving a long-standing problem for its users.
For people who rely on Signal for private conversations, this new option offers peace of mind. It allows them to protect their history without compromising the principles that make Signal popular among privacy-conscious users.
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