lost my chat conversations when installing with new iPhone

[masterbruce99]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

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Bug description

I wanted to let you know that I got a new phone and unfortunately, my previous conversations have been lost.

Steps to reproduce

when I download the app and login, chat goups load just not the chat.

Actual result: it just doesn't show the conversation

Expected result: when we get a new phone our conversation should sync with the new phone signal installed.

Device info

iPhone 13 beta 2

iOS version: X.Y.Z
iOS 18.0 (22A5297F)
Signal version: Z.Y
7.18 (190)

[LiroyvH]

Signal for iOS is specifically designed to destroy your entire message history when something bad happens and deliberately does not offer any backup feature. The developers have even gone a step further by setting certain flags that actively ensure you cannot manually make any local backups either. The reasons for this are completely unknown, as its perfectly possible to implement a safe and secure backup feature within iOS as demonstrated by many applications. (Local, encrypted to iCloud, encrypted to AMB, etc.) Heck, even WhatsApp of all places has a means to backup to iCloud with an encryption key of your choosing. Signal could implement the same or simply allow users to disable the flag that prevents the database being included in AMB and/or iCloud device backups.

The Signal team rarely to never responds to questions about this and has ignored this #1 ranking wish among the userbase for years now, which is unfortunate as many people who moved to Signal moved back to (far) less privacy friendly apps because they lose their history. It looks like the team has taken the stance that message history and memories should not be considered important at all by anyone and thus does not warrant implementing any method to make a backup. The only thing it allows is moving it to another iPhone; which is of course utterly useless if your iPhone is broken, stolen or reset for whatever reason.

The only thing you can currently do is link your iOS device to a Mac/PC and generate backups by decrypting the message database there, but that only works for messages you send and receive from that point on. Other than that, you're SOL. It's rather unfortunate Signal doesn't warn users about this (I do feel the team should take more responsibility for making choices that really hurt the userbase when it catches them by surprise), but it is what is.

Good luck and keep your messages safe!