Signal
Updated Sep 28, 2026
Signal is the messenger that deliberately keeps no server copy of your messages, which is the entire point and also the entire problem. There is nothing for anybody to hand back to you, because nobody holds it. The only export is the encrypted backup sitting on your own phone. Android can make one. iPhone cannot, which is the awkward part.
What you'll get
Before you start
- Work out which platform you are on, because the answer is completely different. Android has a backup file. iPhone has nothing equivalent, and no amount of persistence in the settings will produce one.
- On Android, write down the password you already use to unlock Signal, if you have one. The backup is encrypted with a 64 character recovery phrase generated on first use, which is a genuinely different thing from your passcode.
- Free up space first. A backup of a few years of conversations including attachments is measured in gigabytes, and it is written to the same storage you are reading it from.
- On iPhone, the useful preparation is different: make sure your chats are set to a setting that lets you transfer when you change device, and do that before the old phone is lost rather than after.
How to download
- On Android, go to Settings, then Chats, then Transfer. Chat backup is a separate toggle that is off by default, which is the setting people miss.
- Turn on Chat backup and run it. The file is written to the phone and you choose where it goes afterwards.
- The backup file is encrypted. Signal generates a 64 character recovery phrase and asks you to confirm a random selection of the words in order, and there is no way to skip this or to get it back later. Write the phrase down. Not in the same place as the file.
- Move the file off the phone once it is made. A backup sitting on the device it backs up is not a backup.
- On iPhone, the route is different. Signal can transfer your full history to a new device during setup, encrypted, and that transfer is the only copy you will ever get. There is no file.
Pro tip
This is the one service where the honest answer is that you cannot always do it. Signal keeps no message history on its servers, which is the entire point of it, so there is no request to make and no support ticket to open. If you are on an iPhone, your messages exist in exactly one place: the phone. Android can write them to a file you control, and the practical advice for an iPhone is to do the migration onto a new device before the old one goes.
After the download
- The recovery phrase is the backup. Signal does not keep a copy of it, support cannot send it to you, and a backup file without the phrase is an unreadable zip with no way in.
- Attachments come out inside the backup rather than as a separate media folder, so the single file is the whole thing. There is no way to get your images out of Signal without the images.
- A backup is a snapshot, not a sync. It does not update and it does not merge with anything, so a two-year-old backup is two years old.
- A backup file is only as safe as its passphrase and its storage. An unencrypted cloud upload of it defeats the encryption entirely, so it belongs on a drive you control, in a folder nobody else can reach.
- Disappearing messages are already gone, and the backup will not bring them back. If the timer is set short, the export simply will not contain them.
- Not sure where to store your export? See our backup guide.