How Signal’s New Encrypted Backups Work
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Signal users will soon be able to back up their chat history with end-to-end encryption in a secure archive, allowing them to recover their conversations even if they lose their device. While text message backups and a limited amount of media will be free, the platform will also offer long-term media storage as its first paid feature.
Secure Backup is now available for users of the latest Android beta, with a full version coming “soon” to iOS and desktop users. Once you’ve launched Secure Backup, you’ll see it in Signal’s settings menu.
Signal Backup Plans
With Secure Backup, anyone can choose to back up their text messages (up to 100 MiB) and media files, including photos, videos, GIFs, files, and attachments, for the last 45 days for free. You can also pay $1.99 per month for a full media backup for more than 45 days, with a storage limit of 100 GB.
If you enable secure backup, your device will automatically create a new archive every day, replacing the previous day’s archive. Messages intended for one-time viewing and those expected to disappear within the next 24 hours will not be counted.
How Signal Keeps Your Backups Safe
Signal is an open-source messaging platform known for its robust privacy and security features like end-to-end encryption and disappearing messages, so you can rest assured that it will take protecting your backups seriously. According to a blog post describing the new feature , backup archives will be stored without being directly linked to your Signal account or subscription payment, so they won’t be associated with you.
Backups are protected by a 64-digit recovery key that is generated on your device. This means it is never shared with third parties or stored on Signal servers. (This is different from your Signal PIN.) The recovery key is the only way to unlock your backups, so if you lose it, you will permanently lose your archives. Keep this key in a safe place, like a password manager.
Other related features coming in the future include the ability to save a backup archive to a location of your choice and the ability to transfer encrypted message history between devices.