Android 16, Pixel 7 Pro. My Signal data was getting too bloated, so I backed it up, moved the backup to PC, and verified that signalbackup-tools can decrypt and extract the backup. Cool. Now I want to wipe the data in the app while not losing any settings or contacts or anything.

In the app, I went to Settings > Manage storage > Delete message history. It pops up two separate confirmations, and I hit “Yes” to both. After waiting a bit each time, I did this three time. It hasn’t gone well.

  • Signal storage settings still says it’s using almost 9 GB of data.
  • However, Android says Signal is using just 154 MB of user data.
  • All of my conversations and messages are still in Signal, but the media in each conversation shows a broken icon.
  • The “Review storage” screen in Signal still shows tons of media with thumbnails, but none open. Tapping on one just shows a blank camera roll and black space.

So, I went to “Review storage” and it let me do a select all and delete, saying, “Are you sure you want to do this? This will delete 9 GB of messages”. I said yes, and it’s still going. I hope this will at least delete the ghost media.

I suppose I could set a message duration in settings and let old chats expire, though I’m not really against keep the text messages. It was just years of cat photos and videos taking up way too much space.

But why isn’t this feature working?

Update:

My phone screen turned off and when I re-opened it, the progress spinner on the delete progress is frozen. I can’t cancel or anything. I can give it more time, and force close the app if I have to, but it’s not looking good.

Update 2

I swiped the app away from the app switcher, and I was able to open it again and see conversations and such. When I opened settings, it showed that it was using 4.7 GB, and when i closed and reopened settings, it was s tiny bit smaller. Sure enough, after waiting a full hour, it now says it’s only using 67 MB of storage, and all the thumbnails are gone from the media list. So… success?

I still have years worth of plain text messages, and I guess I don’t mind that.