neurolit/signal-back

Decrypt Signal encrypted backups outside the app

signal-back

In version 4.17.5, the Signal Android app introduced encrypted backups. While these are undoubtedly a security benefit over unencrypted backups, they do present an issue in being read into other systems or simply by their owner.

signal-back is intended to use the same decryption process as the Signal app uses when importing its backups, to make them readable without being used by the app.

Usage

Usage: signal-back COMMAND [OPTION...] BACKUPFILE

  --help, -h                show help
  --log FILE, -l FILE       write logging output to FILE
  --password PASS, -p PASS  use PASS as password for backup file
  --pwdfile FILE, -P FILE   read password from FILE
  --version, -v             print the version

Commands:
  format   Read and format the backup file
  analyse  Information about the backup file
  extract  Retrieve attachments from the backup
  help     Shows a list of commands or help for one command

The current interface is by no means complete or stable and may change in the future.

Current export formats are:

• XML: (hopefully) Compatible with SMS Backup & Restore; however, there may be issues.
• CSV

Both formats currently only support SMS, though MMS is planned.

Please create an issue if you have a format you'd like to see! (and the format is not already suggested)

Installing

Download whichever binary suits your system from the releases page; Windows, Mac OS (darwin), or Linux, and 32-bit (386) or 64-bit (amd64). Checksums are provided to verify file integrity.

Building from source

Building requires Go and dep. If you don't have one (or both) of these tools, instructions should be easy to find. After you've initialised everything:

$ git clone https://github.com/xeals/signal-back $GOPATH/src/github.com/xeals/signal-back
$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/xeals/signal-back
$ dep ensure
$ go install .

You can also just use go get github.com/xeals/signal-back, but I provide no guarantees on dependency compatibility.

Todo list

• Code cleanup
  • make code legible for other people
• Actual command line-ness
• Formatting ideas and options
• User-friendliness in errors and stuff

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.