Signal released iOS version 8.30 today, bringing on-device backups to iPhone and Desktop for the first time and rebuilding the feature on Android. The company says the first phase of its backups project is now complete, with work on non-backup improvements still in development. Backups arrived in September 2025 as an optional automatic feature, pitched after the loss of a phone meant a user's message history was gone for good.
The paid tier stores up to 100 gigabytes of media for what Signal calls a small monthly fee, which it says helps offset storage costs. Free accounts keep text messages backed up, but only the last 45 days of media, and messages larger than 128 kilobytes fall under that same 45-day limit. Existing attachments inside the window move to a paid account without being uploaded again.
Backups now use a cross-platform format, so a single backup can be restored on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, or Windows. Media sits in a separate folder rather than one archive, and duplicate files are stored only once to save space. The client uploads a single encrypted copy of duplicate attachments, though attachments are never de-duplicated across separate accounts.
Storage optimization automatically offloads older photos and videos, leaving a thumbnail on the device while the full-size copy stays in the paid backup account. Attachment backfill syncs media across linked devices, and Signal Desktop can request missing files from a user's primary device. Disappearing messages set to vanish within 24 hours are excluded from backups, and expired ones are skipped during an on-device restore.
On the hosted side, Signal creates a new backup every 24 hours and removes the previous one. A supplemental cryptographic key rotates daily and lives in a Trusted Execution Environment, and the company says it cannot decrypt backups without the recovery key. Remote attestation verifies the old key was discarded when a replacement is made. On-device backups cannot use that environment for forward secrecy, so the on-device recovery key decrypts all past backups rather than just the latest. Signal Android and iOS both integrate with password managers for storing that key.
The latest iOS release also revamps device-to-device migration, moving data from an old iPhone to a new one over a local encrypted wireless link. Signal has spent years hardening the protocol itself: it announced quantum resistance work in September 2023, and the Signal Protocol provides end-to-end encryption for billions of people daily.
Signal did not disclose what the paid plan costs.
