Signal’s first paid feature adds encrypted media and message backups

Signal is launching its first paid feature: the ability to make secure, end-to-end encrypted backups of your media history older than 45 days and of your text message history for $1.99 per month.

“Media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive,” Signal’s VP of engineering, Jim O’Leary, says in a blog post. “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.”

Signal is also launching free secure backups that save your media from just the last 45 days. On that free tier, you’ll also be able to save your text messages past then, and while you’ll be limited to saving 100MB of messages, Signal expects that will still “be large enough for even heavy Signal users to back up the text of all of their messages,” according to O’Leary.

The backup archives are “stored without a direct link to a specific backup payment or Signal user account,” O’Leary says. You’ll use a recovery key to unlock your backups, but if you lose that key, the company “cannot help you recover it.” If you turn on secure backups, your device will make a new backup every day.

The feature is available on Android’s beta app, and a public launch and iOS and desktop support are “coming soon.” Down the line, Signal plans to let users save a secure backup archive to “the location of your choosing.”