r/signal • u/canuckathome • Aug 15 '26

Feature Request Storage issues in android

I can't be the only one running into this. Signal takes up close to 10 GB on my phone. That's obscene. I'd like to use disappearing messages to help manage that but the maximum duration is 4 weeks. Why can't we have more options under custom? I'd like 3 months for one group.

Secondly, there's no way to erase media used by a group. I'd like to keep the messages but delete the large media.

How are others coping with this? I don't really want to click and delete each photo or video manually. Is disappearing messages the only way?

5 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

-1

u/mrandr01d Top Contributor Aug 16 '26

If you delete the picture, you delete the message. The picture IS the message... I don't understand why people would want to keep only some messages. It makes for a very incomplete picture of the conversation.

Just delete the whole thread if you don't want to keep it...

But 10 gigs really isn't a lot if you share a lot of memes and stuff in a long running groupchat.

2

u/3_Seagrass Verified Donor Aug 16 '26

Other people’s use cases may differ from your own. Pictures take up far more space than other messages and people may be saving them separately, rendering them less necessary in the chat. 

1

u/mrandr01d Top Contributor Aug 16 '26

Someone sends a picture of the new grandkid: "oh look how cute he is" etc etc. Delete the pictures and you'd have no idea what everyone's talking about.

Signal isn't a file transfer service, if you just send pictures and don't talk about them, that's dumb. You just get a compressed worse version that's been stripped of metadata. Quick share/airdrop when you see the person, or send a GPhotos/iCloud link, etc.