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by parley 2377 days ago
Yes, there are a lot of us out there who use Signal and have this single missing feature as our largest pain point. My previous phone (iOS) would have been donated or sold to someone who could make better use of it, had I been able to actually get years and years of Signal conversations (with media) and memories out of it. But I can't (without prohibitive amounts of manual work), so it lies unused in a drawer waiting for the day I might.

The Signal devs don't discuss their roadmap, as is their prerogative. The result is of course that no one knows if such features are even planned, let alone worked on. Half a decade (?) of sad and frustrated forum posts and GitHub issues attest to that. I scan through them from time to time to see if there's any word.

But! There was actually a tweet from Moxie just a few weeks ago in a thread started by Matthew Green, I think, hinting that they might be working on it. It did make me a little happier. But yes, five years is a long time to wait for this feature, and we don't know for sure if or when it's coming. Me, amidst all the frustration I am very happy for the software they are giving me almost for free (I've donated a little bit).

By the way, Josh, props to you for your patience and professionalism in the debian-devel thread about librsvg the other day.

2 comments

> Me, amidst all the frustration I am very happy for the software they are giving me almost for free (I've donated a little bit).

Complete agreement. I'm glad for the work going into Signal, both in development and in research.

> By the way, Josh, props to you for your patience and professionalism in the debian-devel thread about librsvg the other day.

(OT)

The other year? That conversation took place late last year. Thank you, though.

Oh, wow. I stumbled over the thread just the other day and mechanically just read the month and day... Since it was November I somehow assumed it was recent without reacting. Thanks for the correction! Well, belated props to you then. =o)
> Yes, there are a lot of us out there who use Signal and have this single missing feature as our largest pain point.

That is fair, but... I'm willing to make a backup file and handle a 30-digit passcode. I don't want to sign up using a phone number. That's crazy. :-/