Interesting that that model works for you, but that doesn't mean it works for everyone.

Persistent history that lasts many times longer than the lifetime of any one device is a required feature to fully replace chat apps that have such history.

I just limit the message number.

BUT I've heard a lot of people request the feature of porting messages. I didn't realize people care about this till they started telling me (I have convinced a good number of my friends to switch to Signal). So I'd say that because the market is asking for it, implement it. (I do notice that it is only iPhone users asking me about how they can do this. Might be selection bias)

BTW, you can do this! [0] I'd think the easiest thing to do (I don't know iOS or Android at all) would be to create a backup to iCloud or Drive that will hold an encrypted file. Then a function for the reverse. Since I don't do anything remotely near mobile, is this not fairly easy to implement? Encrypted backup is one of the top requested features [1] and seems one of the easiest to implement.

[0] https://github.com/signalapp

[1] https://community.signalusers.org/c/feature-requests?order=v...

Side note: the only features I want are

- Not being tied to a phone number, or a way to add a user without a phone number

- domain fronting (... thanks Amazon... )[2]

I think both are in the spirit of what Signal is trying to do and would specifically help protestors in authoritative countries. That they can decrypt their phones and not reveal others in the group chats. But I understand that these requests are much more difficult than asking for encrypted backup.

[2] https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/

I'm with you on that. Maybe it's just me, but I believe that a communication system (be Signal or email) is not designed for long term storage, it's just not efficient to keep structured data and not made for that purpose.

If a fragment of a conversation is useful, I'd store it somewhere else safe just in case (Password Manager, as a secure note).

I did the same. Only one person voiced their annoyance due to messages disappearing. I never used chat history as a data store, I move appointments or things I need to know into my agenda/wiki, but it seems some use chat history+search for that.

Since I really dislike using chatlogs, and rather not keep any (and ever since the 90ies, I never have), I really like the 1 week timer on Signal.

I've been putting the same 1 week timer on all chats; it's a breath of fresh air. Very happy that these chats are ephemeral. It feels far more natural.

(Not a "it works for me it should work for you", just wanted to share an anecdote :) )