How to export and archive your Signal chats

Phones die. Laptops get stolen. Relationships end. Sometimes a court order shows up wearing a polite smile. In all those scenes, chat history turns into evidence, comfort, or a mess that needs sorting.

A Signal chat backup is not a single magic button, though plenty of people wish it was. Signal is built to keep messages private, not to make scrapbooks. So archiving takes a little intention, plus a hard look at what Signal can and can’t do on each platform as of January 2026.

This guide lays out the sane options: attachments, searchable text, and a backup that can actually be restored.

What Signal can and can’t do natively (January 2026)

Signal stores messages locally on devices. That’s the whole vibe. It also means backups are a platform-by-platform deal, not a universal “export everything” feature.

Here’s the current shape of it, with official docs in plain view: Signal’s backup and restore guidance and the broader backups and device transfers explainer.

Native options (and the catches):

• Secure cloud backups (end-to-end encrypted): As of January 2026, this is available in Android beta, with iOS and Desktop rollout in progress. It’s opt-in and protected by a long recovery key. Media coverage is limited (reported up to about 45 days of media), and view-once or disappearing content won’t behave like normal archives.
• On-device backups: Available on Android, and newer iOS builds lean on device-to-device transfer rather than iCloud-style backups. Signal’s own docs are the source of truth for what’s supported on each OS version.
• “Export chat” like a tidy PDF: Not native today. A machine-readable JSON export is still “in development,” not a tool a regular person can bank on.

Now the practical question: what method matches the goal?

Comparison table: export and archive methods (pros, cons, risk)

The rule: restores and archives are different jobs. One brings Signal back to life, the other builds a library.

Step-by-step: create a restorable Signal chat backup

This section is about the kind of Signal chat backup that can be restored into Signal, not just “saved somewhere.”

Android: on-device backup (restore later, even offline)

Prerequisites

• Signal updated.
• Enough free storage for a backup file.
• A safe place to store the backup passphrase or recovery key (paper in a drawer beats a sticky note on a monitor).
• A way to copy the backup file off the phone (USB cable, SD card, or secure transfer).

Create the backup

1. Open Signal, go to Signal Settings.
2. Find Backups or Chats, then Backups (wording shifts by version).
3. Turn on on-device backups and record the passphrase it shows.
4. Tap Create backup (or wait for the scheduled run).
5. In the same screen, note the backup folder location shown by Signal. That exact path matters more than guessing.

Move it off the phone (the part most people skip)

• Copy the backup file from the Signal backup folder to a computer.
• Do not rename it unless there’s a clear reason, some tools expect the original naming pattern.
• Keep the passphrase stored separately from the file.

Restore on a new Android device

1. Install Signal on the new phone.
2. During setup, choose restore from backup when prompted.
3. Place the backup file where Signal expects it (Signal will usually point to the right folder).
4. Enter the passphrase exactly.
5. Let the restore finish before linking Desktop devices.

Signal restores are typically all-or-nothing imports. Mixing partial histories is not the design.

iPhone: device transfer first, “backup” second

On iOS, the clean path is usually device-to-device transfer during setup, not an iCloud bundle. That means:

• Both devices are present.
• Both devices are charged and on reliable Wi-Fi.
• Signal set up on the old phone and ready to follow the transfer prompts.

If secure cloud backups have reached that iOS install, great. If not, Desktop archiving becomes the record-keeping option (next section).

Export and archive Signal chats with attachments, then make them searchable

A restore is a safety net. An archive is a museum drawer, labeled, dated, and searchable. This is where third-party tools come into play, since Signal doesn’t ship a polished export-to-PDF feature.

Option A: extract from Android backup files (third-party)

For people who already have Android backup files, one respected route is signalbackup-tools on GitHub, which is built to work with Signal backup files.

Prerequisites

• The backup file was copied off the phone.
• The backup passphrase.
• A computer environment comfortable with tooling (often Linux-friendly).

Attachment handling

• Some exports produce a directory of media files plus a message log.
• The archive should keep the exported text and the attachment folder together, like a photo contact sheet kept with its negatives.

Option B: Use Signal Desktop as the “archive workstation.”

Signal Desktop holds a local message store for linked chats. That makes it a staging area for archiving, even if it’s not a traditional “backup.” The practical steps are simple:

1. Link the desktop to the primary phone.
2. Allow time for messages and media to load.
3. Use a community export tool suited to Signal Desktop data to produce HTML, Markdown, or another readable format.
4. Store exports as read-only files in a dedicated archive folder.

Making the archive searchable (without turning it into confetti)

Text that can’t be searched is a box of letters with the envelopes glued shut.

• PDF with OCR: If the export is HTML or images, convert to PDF and run OCR using tools like OCRmyPDF or Tesseract so the text becomes searchable.
• Local indexing: On Linux, tools like Recoll can index a folder of PDFs and text exports. On macOS, Spotlight can do the job if the files are in a location that Spotlight can search. Keep indexing local unless there’s a strong reason not to.

Handle the archive like it’s a loaded camera roll

A Signal export stops being “protected by Signal” the moment it becomes a normal file. At that point, it should be treated like raw photos from a private shoot.

Encrypt the archive

• Use an encrypted container (7-Zip with AES-256, or a GPG-encrypted file).
• For a Linux-centric workflow, a practical approach is described in this Linux file manager PGP encrypt/decrypt guide.

Verify integrity with checksums

• Generate a SHA-256 checksum file (for example, with sha256sum) and store it next to the encrypted archive.
• When copying to a new drive years later, re-check the hash. If it doesn’t match, the archive has been quietly damaged.

Use 3-2-1 storage

• 3 copies, 2 different media types, 1 off-site.
• Off-site can be cloud storage, but only after encryption. Cloud providers don’t need to read love letters.

Redact before sharing

• Remove phone numbers, faces in images, and file metadata (EXIF data can expose location).
• If a “safe” snippet must be shared, exporting a minimal redacted excerpt beats sharing the full archive.

Watch the privacy traps

• Cloud backups: even end-to-end encrypted ones still create a cloud object that can be deleted, synced wrong, or restored by someone holding the recovery key.
• Screenshots: the fastest way to leak a secret, plus they land in photo sync systems by default.
• Desktop caches: linked Desktop devices store local data. A shared laptop is not a confessional booth.

Conclusion

A good Signal chat backup plan has two layers: a restorable backup for continuity, and an encrypted archive for long-term memory. Signal can handle restoring stories on supported platforms, but readable exports still live in third-party territory. The smart move is boring and strict: encrypt, checksum, and store copies like a careful librarian guarding a rare manuscript. When the day comes that a device fails, the archive should open cleanly, and nothing should spill.