You already can, if you at least set up desktop, you can transfer also message history, though you won't have your media older than 45 days. Maybe it can work as a stopgap before they roll out encrypeted backups everywhere

That's a weird and crappy arbitrary limitation when I could move an arbitrary amount of data between the two devices otherwise. It's the worst part of Signal.

On top of that you don't have that limitation on Android. It's like enterprise IT, where you put up restrictions everywhere on files and then people can upload files to their personal one drive.

It also does not work on Windows clients but errors out. Android and Linux are fine.

It does for me, sure why it errors out for you

I've always been able to transfer history, from Android phone to Android phone, when I switched to iOS, I didn't bother since my wife was just going to start using Messages due to its encrypted nature. I really only used Signal with my wife, she only used it because I was using it and it allowed us to send images back and forth without losing quality.

> without losing quality

Signal does lossy compression on images. You can change image quality from “Standard“ to “High“ in its settings but not disable it.

> WhatsApp had a migration app that has to be done when setting up the iPhone, but it failed due to some bug.

It's appalling to see how poor there QA is for a company that big. They also have a migration tool for migrations between android devices without going through a Google drive, but this one didn't work either when I tried it two years ago.

doesn't signal also have a transfer to other device flow now?

They have it between two Android phones next to each other for years, but probably not Android to iOS

iOS to iOS works

Android to Android works

iOS to/from Android does not work

stolen phone to new phone does not work :)

> stolen phone to new phone does not work :)

I'm curious about that, has this been tested by someone who "steals" the phone, and tries to migrate before the actual phone owner even realizes?

haha I was actually thinking of the case where you don't have your phone any more and want your signal history, but that's another way to read it :)

you need to be able to unlock the phone and then you need the Signal PIN code for this.