Forget disappearing messages - now Signal will store 100MB of them for you for free

Encrypted messaging app Signal is rolling out a free storage system for its users, with extra space if folks are willing to pay for it.

The company will gift all users 100MB of free storage for images, video, GIFs and other media from the prior 45 days of use. Signal users can choose to delete their messages after a set period. The new storage feature is opt-in to preserve that preference.

Signal will update the archive daily so you won't lose more than a day's worth of material if your phone is destroyed or lost. There's also a $1.99 per month paid tier that increases storage allowance to 100GB.

The storage applies to messages and any media, and Signal stores it in an encrypted folder, backed up with a 64-character key stored on the device in case you need to restore access - Signal won't be able to access the key, and therefore will have no way to access this data if you lose or forget the key.

"This is the first time we've offered a paid feature. The reason we're doing this is simple: media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive," explained Jim O'Leary, Signal's VP of engineering, in Monday's announcement.

"As a nonprofit that refuses to collect or sell your data, Signal needs to cover those costs differently than other tech organizations that offer similar products but support themselves by selling ads and monetizing data."

As you'd expect from an organization so devoted to privacy, Signal will pad stored files with extraneous data to block any attempts to decrypt them, should someone break into a storage archive. You can check the storage code yourself here.

The team is releasing the storage feature in the latest Android build and will add it to its iOS and desktop clients.

"Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing, alongside features that let you transfer your encrypted message history between Android, iOS, and Desktop devices."

One potential downside to the storage feature is that a user activated it, it'll store messages sent to that user - whether or not a correspondent is happy to have their messages preserved. We've asked for clarification as to how this would affect messages set to disappear. ®