xeals/signal-back

Feature request: Recreate backup from unencrypted data

neilmusgrove opened this issue · 7 comments

neilmusgrove commented

This project looks great for exporting signal backups and I notice there is a raw option which worked for me. What I would find really useful is if I could export to raw formats (with all attachments), edit (manually), and then rebuild into a valid achive for import. Essentially all I think I need is to decrypt the bundle as is to disk, edit and then re-encrypt (eg no format conversion). I've got some broken data which I'm trying to fix and I'd like to have a go at fixing this manually in the sql export file and importing that back into signal with all attachments. Many Thanks.

xeals commented

This could be a bit of a long-term goal, but would require some work. Interesting proposal.

  • 👍5
4lex11s commented

Yes it should also useful, for importing data in Signal from another messaging app, such as slack or google hangout. Many Thanks !

  • 👍1
alexlance commented

If an XML file that was compatible with SMS Backup & Restore, were able to be rolled up into a file that could be imported into Signal, it would fill a gap for those wishing to migrate their existing message stores to Signal.

There is currently no method to migrate existing messages inclusive of mms into Signal.

codethief commented

Another benefit would be that backups could possibly be merged by hand. I still have an old phone lying around that has tens of thousands of Signal messages on it from a time when encrypted backups weren't possible yet. I would love to have these available on my current phone.

  • 👍5
samizdis commented

Another benefit of this would be the ability to recover backups where some of the frames are corrupt, see signalapp/Signal-Android#8355

Signal simply refuses to load partially-corrupt backup files, whereas signal-back will happily read/recover all it can.

  • 👍2
luke-shields commented

This would also be very helpful for Huawei devices, most of which Signal is unable to import Sms from

alexlance commented

Any chance this is on the radar?

Would love to be able to dump out my old SMS message store to XML (using SMS Backup and Restore) and then use signal-back to convert that XML file into a Signal Backup file, that can then be restored into Signal complete with MMS/attachments.