this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025

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776

Signal will finally let you transfer your encrypted chat history to new linked devices (mas.to)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

108 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Signal has announced new functionality in its upcoming beta releases, allowing users to transfer messages and media when linking their primary Signal device to a new desktop or iPad. This feature offers the choice to carry over chats and the last 45 days of media, or to start fresh with only new messages.

The transfer process is end-to-end encrypted, ensuring privacy. It involves creating a compressed, encrypted archive of your Signal data, which is then sent to the new device via Signal's servers. Despite handling the transfer, the servers cannot access the message content due to the encryption.

With the introduction of a cross-platform archive format, Signal is also exploring additional tools for message transfer to new devices or restoration in case of device loss or damage. Users can begin testing this feature soon, with a wider rollout expected in the coming weeks.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Holy shit no way, basic functionality needed at absolutely all times, in my signal? More likely than you think!

Kudos to the Devs! Maybe time to give this app another shot!

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I’m still waiting for the day that I can make a full backup of my chats and save it on an external hard drive so that I won’t lose all of my message history when I lose my phone.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You can on Android. If you have an iPhone you can link using the molly signal fork on an android device and then backup using that.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oooh interesting! Could you please elaborate / share any resources about this?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Here's a link to their website https://molly.im/ It also links to their GitHub. If you'd want to backup what you'd do is link molly to your iphone signal instance and then the Android client or molly android client of signal allows you to make local backups on device.

Restoring it back to the iPhone won't be possible but there's a backup at least. Or rather maybe with that recent change the article talks about it might be possible in the future but not currently afaik.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

This is wonderful, thank you so much!

I’ve been holding off from switching to Android (and getting a GrapheneOS x Pixel phone) because I have 5 years’ worth of messages on Signal on my iPhone… I’ll look into this method for sure

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You can already do it. I have Signal create daily backups, sync it to my NAS using Syncthing with versioning enabled.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Original announcement: https://signal.org/blog/a-synchronized-start-for-linked-devices/

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Blogs like these drive me fucking crazy: there's a primary source out there, why not just link to that at the end of your (evidently pointless) opinion piece?

It's almost like they know their commentary isn't adding anything and they're worried we'll click away immediately.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Finally I can transfer my one and only chat to my PC

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago

Yay Signal!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks, I love Signal, but can we get Android tablet linking?

Molly has it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

What's Molly in this context?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

https://molly.im/

A hardened Signal fork that works with Signal's servers and adds features I like that Signal doesn't support.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

TIL. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I heard signal dislikes forks using its server, did molly get approval to do so, or is this based on generosity until signal can ban them?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I heard that too...1ish years ago and Molly still seems to work okay. I would assume by now that Signal knows they exist, so hopefully they'll keep playing nice.