Signal is adding something users have asked for since the app’s early days: cloud backups that keep end-to-end encryption intact. The privacy-first messenger now offers a free option that preserves your text history plus recent media, alongside its first-ever paid plan that expands storage for full media archives.
What the new backup plans include
The free tier allocates 100MB for messages and stores the last 45 days of media. Signal says messages are compressed efficiently, making that allowance viable even for busy chats. Daily backups run automatically once you enable the feature in Settings.
For people who want a longer media history, Signal is introducing a $1.99 per month plan with 100GB of storage. That capacity is designed to handle years of photos, videos, and voice notes without sacrificing the service’s zero-knowledge guarantees.
Backups are unlocked with a device-generated, 64-character recovery key that only you control. Lose it, and neither Signal nor your payment provider can help recover the data — a deliberate design trade-off to keep backups unreadable to anyone but the account holder.
Why this matters for a privacy app
Signal historically avoided cloud backups to prevent metadata exposure and the risk that third parties could access message contents. Android users had encrypted local backups; iOS users relied on device-to-device transfers. The new approach brings cloud convenience without punching holes in the threat model.
By keeping encryption keys on-device and separating backup records from identifiers like phone numbers or payment details, Signal aligns with best practices championed by cryptography researchers and digital rights groups. The model mirrors the “zero-knowledge” architectures used in secure storage products where the service operator never holds decryption keys.
How it compares to other messengers
WhatsApp offers optional end-to-end encrypted backups that rely on a user-chosen password or key, but they are off by default. Apple’s Advanced Data Protection can extend end-to-end encryption to iCloud backups, including Messages in iCloud, if users opt in. Telegram, by contrast, stores most cloud chats on its servers without end-to-end encryption, reserving E2EE for “secret chats” only.
Signal’s addition closes a long-standing usability gap for people who replace or lose phones frequently, while preserving the app’s harder security stance. For users who care about both portability and privacy, the paid 100GB plan is notable: it is priced closer to raw storage costs than to a premium feature upsell, suggesting the goal is cost recovery rather than monetization.
Security model and practical tips
The recovery key is the single point of access. Store it offline in multiple places — a password manager, a printed copy in a safe — because there is no account recovery flow and no escrow. This is the same “no backdoors” principle that has earned Signal high marks from independent security audits and privacy advocates.
Backups are designed to be unlinkable to your identity or payment method. That means Signal can fund storage without learning who you are or what you store, an approach consistent with the nonprofit’s stance against ad-based profiling.
Availability and what’s next
The feature is debuting in the Android beta, with broader platform support on the roadmap. Signal also plans to let users choose where a backup archive lives and to enable cross-platform history transfers — long-requested capabilities for people moving between Android and iOS.
If delivered as described, the rollout could shift expectations for secure messaging: you no longer have to trade privacy for convenience. For a service that built its reputation on security first, adding backups without weakening encryption is the meaningful part of the news — not the price tag.
Bottom line: Signal’s backups bring modern reliability to a privacy staple, marrying zero-knowledge design with sensible pricing, and raising the bar for how encrypted messengers handle your history when your phone doesn’t.