Signal is rolling out Secure Backups, a privacy-preserving way to save your message history for free, and introducing its first paid add-on for users who need more. The opt-in feature refreshes daily, encrypts everything end to end, and gives you a short, recoverable window of recent conversations without exposing your data to Signal or cloud providers.
How Secure Backups work
Secure Backups store your messages and media in an encrypted archive that only you can unlock with a 64-character recovery key. That key never touches Signal’s servers; lose it and the backup is irretrievable by design. This approach mirrors Signal’s broader architecture, which minimizes metadata and avoids tying content to identities.
By default, you get 100MiB of storage at no cost and can access the last 45 days of chats and media. Signal says backups are compressed, so most people should fit within that free tier—especially if their conversations are text-heavy. As a rough guide, compressed text is tiny; photos and videos dominate storage, which is why the company engineered daily rolling archives rather than open-ended, multi-gigabyte history.
A small but crucial detail: backups are intentionally stored without a direct link to your Signal account or any payment method. That separation reduces the risk that someone could map a backup to a specific user, consistent with Signal’s emphasis on data minimization.
The first-ever paid feature
If you need to keep more than 45 days, Signal now offers a $1.99 per month plan that extends retention beyond the free window. For a nonprofit that rejects ads and data monetization, the math is straightforward: media storage and bandwidth cost real money. Public cloud pricing from major providers illustrates why—storing and moving large files at scale is one of the most expensive parts of running a modern messaging service.
Signal’s leadership has long argued that sustainable privacy needs durable funding. The organization, overseen by the Signal Foundation and supported by donations and small payments, is signaling that limited, user-supported features can underwrite infrastructure without compromising on surveillance-free design.
Opt-in, but mind your counterparties
Secure Backups are strictly opt-in. If you don’t enable them, nothing changes on your device. However, the people you chat with can opt in on their side, which means copies of your shared messages may live in their encrypted backup. That’s not a flaw—just how messaging works across two ends. It’s worth discussing expectations in sensitive conversations and reviewing features like disappearing messages if your threat model requires tighter controls.
As always, store your 64-character recovery key safely. Security professionals commonly recommend a reputable password manager or an offline record kept in a secure place. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s security guides emphasize that strong keys protect privacy only when users can reliably find them later.
How it compares to other messengers
Signal’s approach differs from the industry norm. WhatsApp offers cloud backups via iCloud or Google Drive, and while end-to-end encryption for backups is available, it must be explicitly enabled. Telegram stores most chats on its servers for convenience, but those cloud chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted by default. Apple’s iMessage can be backed up to iCloud with end-to-end encryption when Advanced Data Protection is turned on, though metadata considerations remain.
Signal’s backup design keeps encryption keys with the user and avoids linking archives to accounts. That reduces recovery convenience but meaningfully limits the data that any third party—or the service itself—can access. It’s a textbook trade-off for a platform built around privacy as the primary feature, not an add-on.
Who should consider paying
If your work depends on maintaining context—think journalists, humanitarian workers, researchers, or small teams coordinating across time zones—the extended window can be valuable insurance against phone loss or device failure. Anyone who shares a steady stream of photos and videos will also hit the 100MiB limit more quickly, making the $1.99 tier a pragmatic upgrade.
Availability and getting started
Secure Backups are available now in the latest beta on Android, with broader platform support on the way. To try it, update your app, open settings, and follow the prompts to generate and save your recovery key. Expect short onboarding that stresses key safety; Signal can’t help if you lose it, and that’s the point.
The result is a middle path that many privacy advocates have asked for: meaningful recovery without weakening end-to-end encryption. It won’t satisfy users who want infinite, hands-off history, but it squarely aligns with Signal’s mission while finally meeting a mainstream expectation for modern messaging.