Signal Adds Support for Secure Backups

The privacy-focused messaging app Signal is introducing a new Secure backup feature that will allow users to back up their chats and media as an end-to-end encrypted archive. This has been a popular request from Signal users, who are currently unable to restore their messages on a new device if they lose or damage their phone.

Secure backups are currently only available in the latest beta version of Signal for Android, and the feature is entirely opt-in. Users can back up all of their text messages and photos/videos sent and received for the last 45 days for free. To back up older media, however, users will need to pay $1.99 per month.

“This is the first time we’ve offered a paid feature,” Signal emphasized yesterday. “The reason we’re doing this is simple: media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive. As a nonprofit that refuses to collect or sell your data, Signal needs to cover those costs differently than other tech organizations that offer similar products but support themselves by selling ads and monetizing data.”

Signal’s Secure Backups use a 64-character recovery key that is generated on users’ devices and is never shared with Signal’s servers. The company also won’t be able to help users recover that key, so it recommends they write it down or save it in a secure password manager.

The Signal team plans to roll out Secure Backups to iOS and Desktop in the near future, but it’s also working on other backup features. “Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing, alongside features that let you transfer your encrypted message history between Android, iOS, and Desktop devices,” the company announced yesterday.