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Backing up Signal on Android for free and offline was ~always possible. The app creates a multi GB backup file on the phone memory under the Signal folder that

Backing up Signal on Android for free and offline was ~always possible. The app creates a multi GB backup file on the phone memory under the Signal folder that you can just copy out and back on a new phone. The file is encrypted with the passcode and the database can be extracted. https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools

growse 1y ago
Personally, I find that having orchestrate and regularly schedule the exporting of that file off my device to somewhere else, and then look after it there to be not "free". The new offering is reasonably priced imo.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  Agreed. I prefer setting it up myself and have had Signal backing up to my home server for a few years now, but for most users an opt-in with a basic free tier and cheap enough paid plan makes a lot of sense. Glad to see they're finding potential revenue streams that don't compromise their focus on privacy and security.
  - dcow 1y ago
    They even say they’re committed to offering BYO storage as the feature matures
Sesse__ 1y ago
There are a couple of problems with the existing backup: 1. It is non-incremental. This means you'll need about as much free space on your phone as your Signal database takes, and it may take many hours to make if your database is large (mine is 18GB). I used to wake up to find my phone had not even fully charged because it had been so busy writing Signal backups. 2. Once you have it on disk, how do you get it away from your phone? Especially after SyncThing disappeared from Play Store (because it was basically a non-Android app behind a thin Android shell that couldn't easily be upgraded to more modern native APIs), there's nothing super-obvious here. I would have loved a better solution for local backups, but realistically, $2/month for cloud backup is really cheap, and a pragmatic solution.
- nottorp 1y ago
  > Once you have it on disk, how do you get it away from your phone? adb pull no worky? At least for HN readers.
  - Sesse__ 1y ago
    Any backup that needs manual intervention is no backup.
    - nottorp 1y ago
      Thought people are talking about backups without a "cloud" involved. So you'd need to manually connect your phone to something...
      - Sesse__ 1y ago
        What? My phone has a perfectly working 802.11 chipset, which is able to talk to my very own machines that are not in a cloud, no manual connection needed. This is purely a software/ecosystem issue.
        dmesg 1y ago
        Imagine we could run the backup server backend self-hosted and FLOSS. Like Vaultwarden, the upstream bitwarden client API.
      - nine_k 1y ago
        Wireguard + syncthing (from F-Droid) work fine. Triggering it when the phone is on the charger makes it very easy to sync things from a computer to the phone, while next to the computer.
        hiq 1y ago
        To be clear, Signal + Syncthing also works fine, that's what I have.
tjoff 1y ago
Yeah, didn't see it mentioned, I trust it will still be available?
- halyconWays 1y ago
  I bet they'll phase it out and try to force their worse service, wherein your data is stored on their servers, like they tried to do with PINs. It took enormous pushback to get them to stop mandatory PINs, and even then they made it nagware for a year or two. I didn't trust their rationale about PINs and remote attestation somehow meaning your data is secured by a small passphrase, just like I won't trust them to not remove a useful and existing feature I already rely on for backups. Also not mentioned, they designed their existing backup solution to require reverse-engineered community solutions to actually access your data; I have to use a Github project to unencrypt the backup and export my chats, which is something I've never had to do with any other messenger.
  - codethief 1y ago
    While I understand (and share) your criticism, it does sound like they'll continue to support local backups: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45172188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45172188
    - halyconWays 1y ago
      From your link, I wish they would answer this, and they've been asked numerous times, and to my knowledge have avoided the question (which is very concerning to me): >This is excellent news! Will there also be official documentation on the backup format, potentially even official tooling like signalbackup-tools[0] to access/parse backups offline? I'm asking because, having used Signal/TextSecure for 10 years now, my backups are worth a lot to me (obviously) and there have been times when I would have liked to mine & process my backed-up data. (Extract media from conversations in an automated manner, build a more elaborate search, …) I'm like that poster and backup all my chats obsessively, since way back in the day, and experienced a period with Signal where it was impossible for me to access my own data because of their position.
jacooper 1y ago
This trick never worked for me, the app just never restores this. People used to say the same about WhatsApp. Now both have direct migration features.
anilakar 1y ago
If you restore the backup on a new phone, you'll have to resync all desktop machines, and at least on Windows syncing old messages has never worked for me.
- poisonborz 1y ago
  Signal never syncs old messages on secondary clients for security reasons.
  - privacyking 1y ago
    I don't think that's true anymore. They added message history syncing
  - anilakar 1y ago
    They do. They also offer to do it when you link your desktop client, and like I said, it works on Linux but gives an error message on Windows. Also, considering that linking requires access to your existing device I don't see an issue with that. Moxie himself considered usability to be more important than tinfoil hat-level crypto because large-scale adoption is what enables security.
    - AnonC 1y ago
      > They do. The limitation is that only message history from the past 45 days would be synced. If this has changed recently to allow syncing all message history, I’d be thrilled!

growse 1y ago

Personally, I find that having orchestrate and regularly schedule the exporting of that file off my device to somewhere else, and then look after it there to be not "free". The new offering is reasonably priced imo.

_heimdall 1y ago
Agreed. I prefer setting it up myself and have had Signal backing up to my home server for a few years now, but for most users an opt-in with a basic free tier and cheap enough paid plan makes a lot of sense. Glad to see they're finding potential revenue streams that don't compromise their focus on privacy and security.
- dcow 1y ago
  They even say they’re committed to offering BYO storage as the feature matures

Sesse__ 1y ago

There are a couple of problems with the existing backup: 1. It is non-incremental. This means you'll need about as much free space on your phone as your Signal database takes, and it may take many hours to make if your database is large (mine is 18GB). I used to wake up to find my phone had not even fully charged because it had been so busy writing Signal backups. 2. Once you have it on disk, how do you get it away from your phone? Especially after SyncThing disappeared from Play Store (because it was basically a non-Android app behind a thin Android shell that couldn't easily be upgraded to more modern native APIs), there's nothing super-obvious here. I would have loved a better solution for local backups, but realistically, $2/month for cloud backup is really cheap, and a pragmatic solution.

nottorp 1y ago
> Once you have it on disk, how do you get it away from your phone? adb pull no worky? At least for HN readers.
- Sesse__ 1y ago
  Any backup that needs manual intervention is no backup.
  - nottorp 1y ago
    Thought people are talking about backups without a "cloud" involved. So you'd need to manually connect your phone to something...
    - Sesse__ 1y ago
      What? My phone has a perfectly working 802.11 chipset, which is able to talk to my very own machines that are not in a cloud, no manual connection needed. This is purely a software/ecosystem issue.
      - dmesg 1y ago
        Imagine we could run the backup server backend self-hosted and FLOSS. Like Vaultwarden, the upstream bitwarden client API.
    - nine_k 1y ago
      Wireguard + syncthing (from F-Droid) work fine. Triggering it when the phone is on the charger makes it very easy to sync things from a computer to the phone, while next to the computer.
      - hiq 1y ago
        To be clear, Signal + Syncthing also works fine, that's what I have.

tjoff 1y ago

Yeah, didn't see it mentioned, I trust it will still be available?

halyconWays 1y ago
I bet they'll phase it out and try to force their worse service, wherein your data is stored on their servers, like they tried to do with PINs. It took enormous pushback to get them to stop mandatory PINs, and even then they made it nagware for a year or two. I didn't trust their rationale about PINs and remote attestation somehow meaning your data is secured by a small passphrase, just like I won't trust them to not remove a useful and existing feature I already rely on for backups. Also not mentioned, they designed their existing backup solution to require reverse-engineered community solutions to actually access your data; I have to use a Github project to unencrypt the backup and export my chats, which is something I've never had to do with any other messenger.
- codethief 1y ago
  While I understand (and share) your criticism, it does sound like they'll continue to support local backups: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45172188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45172188
  - halyconWays 1y ago
    From your link, I wish they would answer this, and they've been asked numerous times, and to my knowledge have avoided the question (which is very concerning to me): >This is excellent news! Will there also be official documentation on the backup format, potentially even official tooling like signalbackup-tools[0] to access/parse backups offline? I'm asking because, having used Signal/TextSecure for 10 years now, my backups are worth a lot to me (obviously) and there have been times when I would have liked to mine & process my backed-up data. (Extract media from conversations in an automated manner, build a more elaborate search, …) I'm like that poster and backup all my chats obsessively, since way back in the day, and experienced a period with Signal where it was impossible for me to access my own data because of their position.

jacooper 1y ago

This trick never worked for me, the app just never restores this. People used to say the same about WhatsApp. Now both have direct migration features.

anilakar 1y ago

If you restore the backup on a new phone, you'll have to resync all desktop machines, and at least on Windows syncing old messages has never worked for me.

poisonborz 1y ago
Signal never syncs old messages on secondary clients for security reasons.
- privacyking 1y ago
  I don't think that's true anymore. They added message history syncing
- anilakar 1y ago
  They do. They also offer to do it when you link your desktop client, and like I said, it works on Linux but gives an error message on Windows. Also, considering that linking requires access to your existing device I don't see an issue with that. Moxie himself considered usability to be more important than tinfoil hat-level crypto because large-scale adoption is what enables security.
  - AnonC 1y ago
    > They do. The limitation is that only message history from the past 45 days would be synced. If this has changed recently to allow syncing all message history, I’d be thrilled!