Daring Fireball★ Signal Secure Backups Are Now Available on iOS
https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/signal_secure_backups_are_now_available_on_ios
https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/signal_secure_backups_are_now_available_on_ios
Maxi 12x 💉@daringfireball I still don’t get why #Signal doesn’t allow manual backups on iOS like they do on Android. iOS has a file system now, you can transfer the archive to a local computer. Signal has had this since it’s dawn on Android. Otherworldly bizarre to still omit such a feature from the iOS version.
Mehdi Kharraz@frumble @daringfireball Because back then, the Files app didn't exist / was too new, and most importantly, iOS users are not used to fiddling with the file system. Also, the file backup on Android worked but still had its problems (though mostly for the Signal devs & support) (1/3)
EDIT: source of this info is this old post on the community forum back in 2020. This was the only official response from the Signal team explaining the absence of backups on iOS: https://community.signalusers.org/t/ios-backups-keeping-message-history-when-resetting-phone/1736/182
iOS Backups / Keeping message history when resetting phone
Backup is something really important to us, and we are of course aware that this is a huge friction point in our user base. It’s something we talk about regularly, but it’s a very complicated problem to solve. Some facts about the ecosystem: Apple allows backing up files and restoring them to other devices by storing files within certain directories within your app. You get this for free if you put your files there, but you also get no control over whether this backup is available for iTunes ...
Regardless, this is now a thing of the past: this new backup system is a technical improvement on all fronts: smoother/faster, more solid/reliable, more space-efficient and now based on a cross-platform schema which makes it compatible across all of Signal clients, to enable OS migration. (2/3)
They already announced that the local file backup on Android will inherit the same improvements soon to replace the old one, and it will be introduced on iOS as well, so that there will always be a free option available that you can store anywhere you want. (3/3)
@imkh What improvements? It has worked since Signal was TextSecure.
BTW, we don't get your replies if you aren't including proper mentions. Different behavior here than on Xitter and Bluesky.
BTW, we don't get your replies if you aren't including proper mentions. Different behavior here than on Xitter and Bluesky.
@frumble The ones I listed: faster, more space-efficient, cross-platform... The local option will inherit all of those (smarter diffs for example). Additionally, the cloud option will let you dynamically offload media to save space locally.
All the details were explained back in June in the initial alpha testing thread on the community forum: https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-signal-backups-testing/69984
Other tidbits of info were mentioned in the subsequent beta threads since then (e.g., whether a Family plan could be considered)
All the details were explained back in June in the initial alpha testing thread on the community forum: https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-signal-backups-testing/69984
Other tidbits of info were mentioned in the subsequent beta threads since then (e.g., whether a Family plan could be considered)
@frumble (As for the mentions, not sure. I use Mona and I just let it split the post into a thread automatically. Seems like it removes the mention after the first post, I assume to avoid spamming notifications)
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)The main one is that they’re actually incremental. The current ones back up everything in a single file. And you then upload that to a server for off-device backup (not sync, because the file is encrypted so every part is changed, even though most of the plaintext is the same as yesterday). If the server does any kind of snapshotting or versioning to protect against accidental deletion, the filesystem usage can rapidly become huge.