Signal 8.5 brings new, incremental local backup format

Using /e/OS
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Signal 8.5.0 brings a new (“v2”) local backup format (the same format that is used in the optional cloud backup).

The upside: it has a snapshot friendly incremental mechanism.

No longer does it write new multi-gigabyte .bin-files per backup interval. It will just add/remove what’s changed.

That makes life easier for downstream backup mechanisms like Seedvault or others, not inflating their differential per interval.

You can install it now via Obtainium.

also: looks to me like they’re preparing a local plaintext backup export.

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Murena Sync with WhatsApp Media Folder
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That’s good news.
Previously backup failed so often, with nagging notifications that I disabled them and switched to local file backup with inclusion to seed fault.

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it was untapped potential, backup now only runs a minute. For people reading along: as of now you’d need to abandon an existing backup and create a new one to get the v2 version. I guess there’ll be a migration at some point. Restore key management also changed, I haven’t fully thought that one through.

That plaintext export is also really coming.

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