iPhone users can now transfer Signal data to new phones

iPhone users tin can now transfer Bespeak data to new phones — hither's how

The Signal Private Messenger App Store listing displayed on an iPhone's screen.

(Image credit: Ascannio/Shutterstock)

Encrypted-messaging app Signal now lets you hands transfer your account data, including archived chats, from one iPhone to some other.

Previously, iOS users would have had to kickoff over again when moving to a new telephone. Signal bases accounts on phone numbers, simply all user data is kept securely on the phone, where it'southward supposed to stay.

the company said in a blog post

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Android Indicate users have been able to go effectually this restriction by manually moving information from ane telephone to another in the grade of a password-protected encrypted backup file. Just iOS presented a problem considering "the notion of a 'file system' remains a strange concept to many iOS users" according to Signal'southward Nora Trapp, aka Imperiopolis.

So instead, the iOS data transfer works by displaying a QR code in the Point app on the sometime phone, which the Signal app on the new iPhone tin can then read. (Google's Authenticator app transfers business relationship data in a similar way.) Both phones must be using Bespeak iOS version 3.ix.1 or later.

"The QR code itself does not include any sensitive information," Trapp wrote on the Signal blog. "If someone else is in the aforementioned room and dives beyond the table or races to browse it first, the worst-case scenario is that they could first transferring their data to the new device before you."

Illustration of the Signal Private Messenger data-transfer process on iOS. — (Image credit: Betoken)

Total information-transfer instructions are on this Point page, forth with instructions on moving information between Android devices or betwixt desktops.

"The new device verifies the integrity of the transferred information," Trapp added. "If any errors are detected (for example, if the phones become too far apart and the connection dies), the process is simply aborted and yous tin try over again later on."

Once the transfer is complete, the Signal account on the former phone volition be deactivated and the user data will exist deleted from that device.

Concluding week, Signal said it was developing a new feature that would automatically blur out faces in photos shared with other Signal users.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security infinite for more than than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom'southward Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random Television news spots and even moderated a console give-and-take at the CEDIA home-technology conference. You tin follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.