If I set a conversation length limit though it prevents my ability to search back through my history, which is the feature I'd like to preserve. I value that history, it's useful to me.

My ideal solution would be to export any message older than a month to an archive on my NAS, ideally in a format that the app could search on request. Keep my history, keep the on-device space nice and small.

I take advantage of the Android backup feature, and the backup syncs over to my NAS via SyncThing automatically, but that's only useful for restoring a brand new phone up to the latest state.

> My ideal solution would be to export any message older than a month to an archive on my NAS

I'm confused at what is stopping you from doing this?

> ideally in a format that the app could search on request.

Are you not able to import these backups into the desktop client? IIRC it is just reading from a file structure. I don't see why a small script couldn't resolve this. Obviously you wouldn't be able to search on your phone, but you said you didn't want that data on your phone anyways. If you did want to search on your phone from your computer's storage, I think you're asking way too much of them (and in danger of asking them to store data for you, which they never will do). But this is hacker news, and I don't see why you can't hack together that tool in a weekend. Probably just a few beers on a Friday is enough for it tbh.

> I'm confused at what is stopping you from doing this?

As far as I know the backup is encrypted.

> Are you not able to import these backups into the desktop client?

No, the desktop client is not standalone, and ONLY syncs with the a phone to get content. Moreover, if you don't use the client for a period (2-3 weeks in my experience?) it de-syncs that desktop client. Re-connecting that desktop to your phone will only sync messages starting as-of the connection, so there's no way to get the desktop app to pull your whole history. (This is another gripe I have about their sacrifice of actual usability for security that only helps a few very specific use-cases.)

You're probably rigth about hacking something together. Someone has created a library [0] allegedly for decoding the backup files. Friday night is D&D night though, so I haven't had the chance. :-)

[0] https://github.com/pajowu/signal-backup-decode

I was more thinking to port chats from your phone to the desktop. The desktop client is on the NAS and serves as the "storage" where you can search your full backup. I would guess there would be a more difficult solution where you could hack the phone app to sync all data instead of just when your desktop connects. So that solution might take more than just a Saturday night ;)

I agree that there aren't really any great solutions. But the alternative is that Signal stores your data. I think this would make a lot of users very upset and compromise part of Signal's core mission.

Agree, I don't want them storing anything.

This is one area where, and I know what you're going to say, but Matrix actually does really well. My data, on my server, in my house, not tied to any specific single device I own but distributed across several and backed up in an encrypted manner.

But you've got me thinking about the data export option. Saturday is coming. Hmm...

> and I know what you're going to say, but Matrix actually does really well.

I'm actually a fan of Matrix. I just see Matrix and Signal as different tools. You're probably aware of it, but if not, there is a Matrix bridge for Signal.

> But you've got me thinking about the data export option. Saturday is coming. Hmm...

Hey, I'm really hoping it works. Let me know how it goes!

[0] https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-signal

Being rude to people by dismissing feature requests as invalid isn't helpful.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude. But I am confused at what they want. We have continued the discussion and the picture is clearer to me. Though I'm not sure exactly how Signal can help with it. It still appears to me that the user wants both reduced storage but to maintain search history, which are at odds with one another. Unless they expect Signal to store their history, which those expectations should be shot down because that is against their core philosophy. I did suggest a hack that might fit their needs (full history on desktop but not phone).

How can you be confused?

'I'd take a decent "export my chats" option' is a very simple statement. There is no way within Signal to just export a whole conversation to a file.

> There is no way within Signal to just export a whole conversation to a file.

You can on Android and Desktop. On Mac see ~/Library/Application\ Support/Signal for your data. The only issue is with iOS which I agree is an issue, but does not seem to be the parent's issue.

No you can't. You can find that info at the OS level, or if you use the beta you could get at it via the Developer tools (since it's just a specialized browser window), but there's no userland option to export your conversation in the application.

That's why I wrote 'within Signal.'

As a simple example of how this could get messy, suppose I wanted to back up all my Signal messages, install a different operating system, install Signal there, and load up my old messages. I do have the IT skills to just find the database file and move it manually, but I'm only confident about that because I know its an SQLite database, where the keys are stored etc.

It's still an IT problem I would prefer not to have, vs the simple option of 'Do you want to export this conversation, with all the security implications Y/N' or 'Import this previously archived conversation?'

GP also said they want to be able to search their chat, however, which I believe is the source of the confusion.

Yes, exactly. It's fair, I was not specific enough with my feature request.

But I think that's what godelski is saying is a bit of a contradiction.

If this "accessible searchable archive" is stored "off of the device", how exactly would the device access and search the archive? Facebook can store your Facebook Chat history on their servers no problem, but E2E encryption makes this much more complicated for Signal!

It's not impossible, Apple does it with iMessage, although that was actually a pretty recent addition despite all of Apple's resources!

> But I think that's what godelski is saying is a bit of a contradiction.

Exactly. I'm saying you can't have both low storage and full chat history. These two cannot work without a storage server. I have suggested a method of using the desktop client as the storage server but I agree that there is no great solution.

> It's not impossible, Apple does it with iMessage

That does come with significant tradeoffs though. Now we have to trust Apple that they haven't taken our keys and that they still aren't handing over this data. It is a tricky situation.