41–50 of 283 posts
The issue with Signal that annoys me most is the complete lack of any meaningful backup/export on iOS. I lost my entire chat history when I got a new phone because their bizarre "proximity based" solution failed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, they literally mean "history". Some conversation with a friend who passed away, chats with an ex-lover, remembering school years, tons of memories. I believe at this point those messages are an important part of my past. In other words, if I had a chance to record, search and navigate through real life conversations, I would have done that too; it is way better to have records than to try to remember things.
As someone who has saved no chat logs, and just deleted pics, letters, and such from a long gone marriage; IMO, they’re not that important. In fact, shedding that memory shed cognitive distraction I did not know I had. If I want to connect to people I do it here and now. Talking to the past in my head is unhealthy.
I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it. However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup and restore process as losing my message history because I have to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone is a horrible experience. Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it but I need something .…
Doesn't Signal already have backup? IIRC, when enabled it once per day saves all messages (encrypted with a backup key, which you have to write down somewhere) to /sdcard/Signal, and you can then use Syncthing or something similar to copy it to a new phone. If you put that /sdcard/Signal folder there before starting Signal for the first time, it'll ask to restore from that backup. WhatsApp has an identical local back…
I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it. However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup and restore process as losing my message history because I have to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone is a horrible experience. Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it but I need something .…
Signal has a method to backup chats, at least on Android. It's under Settings > Chats and media > Chat backup. Baffling if this feature isn't available on iPhone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was there any reason provided for the removal? I think it should in fact be essential in EU where they must follow. GDPR regulations and allow users to export their data easily.
There is a pending patent dispute with Blackberry and a German court ordered them to remove the chat export for German users.
A patent on backup up files?! Oh frak this system is broken beyond repair...
I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it. However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup and restore process as losing my message history because I have to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone is a horrible experience. Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it but I need something .…
I've tried to report bugs and talk to developers about this but there's one fundamental problem here - the Signal team fundamentally does not value chat history the same way a lot of people do. They think that destroying all chats is a reasonable thing to do when things get hard - which is the exact opposite to many WhatsApp users, which deeply value images and texts sent to them on that platform.
As such, they've been very very resistant at making the backup process for Signal easy for people. This is also why deskop app regularly happily just trashes all its state and fails to resync. This is why they will never let you make the backup process easy and portable.
It's not a technical issue - they just think you're wrong when you want to keep your conversations.
Unfortunately that's can also be a significantly bigger issue than privacy for a lot of people.
It's really annoying that WhatsApp chat export isn't available in Germany. I used to export my chats as backup and for creating fun stats for group chats with friends, but that feature got removed about a year ago. I haven't found a way to circumvent this restriction. There were some tricks like installing a modified Russion WhatsApp APK but that risk didn't seem worth it.
I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it. However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup and restore process as losing my message history because I have to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone is a horrible experience. Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it but I need something .…
Doesn't Signal already have backup? IIRC, when enabled it once per day saves all messages (encrypted with a backup key, which you have to write down somewhere) to /sdcard/Signal, and you can then use Syncthing or something similar to copy it to a new phone. If you put that /sdcard/Signal folder there before starting Signal for the first time, it'll ask to restore from that backup. WhatsApp has an identical local back…
It's a horrible user hostile process which isn't even implemented for iOS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who has saved no chat logs, and just deleted pics, letters, and such from a long gone marriage; IMO, they’re not that important. In fact, shedding that memory shed cognitive distraction I did not know I had. If I want to connect to people I do it here and now. Talking to the past in my head is unhealthy.
Same here. Emails are much more important to keep.
I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it. However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup and restore process as losing my message history because I have to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone is a horrible experience. Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it but I need something .…
This already exists in Android.
Try to have your mom restore Signal backups after her old phone dies and you'll quickly see why.