Signal Finally Brings Encrypted Cloud Backups to iOS Users

What You Need to Know

• Signal’s encrypted cloud backups are now available for iOS, after launching earlier on Android.

• Users can now securely restore chats across devices, including between Android and iPhone.

• Free storage offers 100 MB, while a $1.99/month subscription increases storage up to 100 GB.

• Media files in backups receive double encryption and padding to reduce metadata exposure.

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Signal, the world’s most trusted privacy-focused messaging platform, has introduced its encrypted cloud backup feature on iOS after months of availability on Android. This marks an important milestone for the app's global user base. Until now, one of the major drawbacks of using Signal, despite its class-leading security standards, has been that if a user lost their phone, damaged it, or merely switched devices, all conversations were at risk of disappearing permanently. In this update, however, Signal has solved the long-standing concern by adding secure, cross-platform backup and restoration of messages without compromising the company's strict privacy principles.

The new backup system works seamlessly across Android and iOS, making it easier for users to migrate their chat history between devices. Signal automatically creates encrypted backups every day, storing all text messages and media files from the past 45 days. This ensures that, even in the event of an unexpected phone failure, important conversations are retained by the user. The company has developed the system to be reliable, efficient, and completely user-controlled, expanding the notion that with the right encryption model, privacy and convenience can exist together.

To support these encrypted backups, Signal is launching both free and paid storage tiers: While users on the free plan get up to 100 MB of secure cloud storage-suitable for messages and a small number of media files-users with heavier usage patterns and large media histories can subscribe at $1.99 per month for as much as 100 GB of encrypted storage. That's the company's first-ever monetized feature but, unlike most messaging apps, the subscription model in Signal is designed only to cover the cost of infrastructure and not to make a profit. There are no ads, no tracking, and no mining of personal data involved, fitting perfectly into the app's non-profit mission.

Security remains the very core of Signal’s identity, and the encrypted backup system has been constructed with extremely strict safeguards in place. Every user gets a 64-character recovery key generated directly on their device to restore the backup. Signal neither stores nor logs nor transmits this key, maintaining that only the user can access their encrypted data. Even Signal's own servers can't decrypt the backups due to zero-knowledge encryption methods involved. Moreover, the app uses double-layer encryption together with padding for media files, minimizing metadata exposure and making file type or size detection nearly impossible.

True to its privacy-oriented philosophy, Signal has excluded the disappearing messages and view-once media from the backup process. These messages are supposed to be temporary, thus private; backing them up would go directly against their purpose. Excluding them allows Signal to offer messaging features that protect user control and confidentiality. This is also in line with the consistent position of this company on respecting user will in regards to data lifetime, making Signal unique from mainstream messaging apps. Overall, the arrival of encrypted backups on iOS represents one of the biggest upgrades to the Signal ecosystem in recent years. The feature not only improves usability and reliability but also reiterates Signal's promise never to sacrifice privacy for convenience.

Users now have the peace of mind that their conversations can be safely restored across devices without exposing their data to third parties. At the same time, the modest subscription option allows Signal to sustain its operations without relying on intrusive business models. With this rollout, Signal has given its community the best of both worlds: a more practical messaging experience that remains deeply rooted in uncompromising privacy.