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.
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?'
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!
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.
'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.