Signal for iOS/iPadOS is taking up too much space even though all media is deleted

[b3hni4]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

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Bug description

I have only had a single group chat which I also deleted all media files. But the app still uses close to a gigabyte of storage on iPhone and the other linked device (iPad). Only thing that helped was to delete entire message history on the linked device. But It does not make sense for only text chats to take up such space, and I don’t want to loose the chat history in my case.

Steps to reproduce

• using hyphens as bullet points
• list the steps
• that reproduce the bug

Device info

Device: iPhone XS, iPad Pro (11 inch)

iOS version: 14.4.1

Signal version: 5.7.0.19

Link to debug log

https://debuglogs.org/3897732fbea5289b0b108c64f5657c71f09267a58d92c7d1596b97fc38cd9574.zip

[HanSeoulOh]

I have deleted all chats and I am still having this issue. This should have higher priority than it is currently given as it suggests that Signal app does not actually delete conversations or messages when the user thinks they have.

[ablakey]

The storage details API was not properly utilized for iOS. So unlike other apps, you cannot see a breakdown of usage or clear that usage from the iOS settings.

I have 8GB of storage Signal is holding on to, even after I deleted every chat with the "Clear Chat History" option.

Please let me know if I can help with this issue somehow because it seems to have been around for years and is pretty severe in my opinion.

[hyiltiz]

As @ablakey pointed out, on iOS you do not have the option to "manage storate" while on Android you do. As a result, you cannot clear large photos or videos sent for one-time viewing by friends. This is a critical feature mismatch across platforms.

[jonathancross]

I'm supporting iOS users which are having this same issue. Example: 11gb used space is not being reduced after clearing out the conversations which contain large media files, etc. There is clearly an issue with freeing storage.

Note: there have been several bugs before this one which were ignored and automatically closed as "stale", despite being serious user facing issues.

[stale]

Is this still relevant? If so, what is blocking it? Is there anything you can do to help move it forward?

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs.

[ablakey]

This is not stale. It’s just not being addressed in a timely manner. This is a very debilitating problem: eating gigs of space and crippling security guarantees by not actually deleting message contents from local storage.

[ablakey]

That's rather embarrassing, Signal. Is this problem too complicated for you?

Edit: I regret this comment. It's rude and unhelpful. My apologies.

[HanSeoulOh]

I've stopped using signal and recommended everyone to not use signal because of this issue. I suspect the consequences of this problem are a lot more sinister than what you might conclude at a first glance.

EDIT:
I do not mean sinister as in the devs' have sinister motives, but as in the consequences of this issue are sinister as in potentially harmful. It is a valid flag for a security concern.

[b3hni4]

@Imperiopolis-Signal How can we reopen this issue?

[javajosh]

Signal maintainers, you ought to reopen this issue, or at least merge it with an active issue. This issue is serious and real, and it does you no favors to ignore it. And I say this as one who gives you money.

[nathantypanski]

This is likely a consequence of the encrypted SQLite message database. Claims that this is a security issue rather than simply a resource waste issue should be viewed with suspicion until substantiated.

1. Signal uses SQLCipher to store messages, encrypted, on disk.
2. This is a known problem with SQLCipher. It can probably be resolved by vacuuming SQLCipher, or enabling autovacuum.

[joshaustintech]

Hi Signal maintainers (@michelle-signal, @jrose-signal @Imperiopolis-Signal, someone?), I'm sure you all are very busy, but when you have a chance can this be reopened and prioritized, please? As an iOS user and donor I'm very concerned that this hasn't been prioritized for a year now.

[HanSeoulOh]

This is likely a consequence of the encrypted SQLite message database. Claims that this is a security issue rather than simply a resource waste issue should be viewed with suspicion until substantiated.

1. Signal uses SQLCipher to store messages, encrypted, on disk.
2. This is a known problem with SQLCipher. It can probably be resolved by vacuuming SQLCipher, or enabling autovacuum.

I certainly hope this is true, and here's hoping for a simple fix. I am a long time user of Signal and was brought to it because of its better security intentions. Having this issue for a while now, I check back frequently and am still surprised that nearly 3 years later it still has not received the attention it deserves. I would be much more comfortable and confident that there is not much to worry about if a dev chimed in and assured us there is no problem and that it is low priority. But they have not made any comments yet, which made me increasingly concerned.

Reading into your suggestions it does seem indeed that your explanation is the most likely cause of the issue, however I definitely would feel better hearing it from the devs themselves that they have investigated the anomaly and came to the same conclusion.

[pitis]

this is unacceptable. I've been using signal for a few years now but only had a few contacts and signal is eating 11gbs of my storage and although I deleted the chats, it still uses 11gb...

This looks like a security issue as well as a performance issue.
Just can't tell people to change to Signal anymore

[sgreadly]

I too wonder how this can be fixed. My iPhone Signal app is 16GB large and I can't figure out how to reduce its size.

[jonathancross]

@EvanHahn-Signal or @max-signal Any chance one you can reopen this issue which was closed incorrectly by the stalebot?

[mkerollos]

@harry-signal @sashaweiss-signal @igor-signal @Imperiopolis-Signal sorry for the spam (you're the most recent contributors) but it looks this one was incorrectly closed as stale but still impacts iOS (iOS 15.6.1 with Signal 5.51.0.14). This has a bigger impact the longer a user is on signal, as media accumulates to tens of gigabytes and will be a significant portion of storage for those on older/lower storage phones.

[sgreadly]

I must say, I'm finding very difficult to keep the family and friends on Signal for this very bug and reason. They're not tech savvy, and aren't bothered to do workarounds (not that I know of any), and if the only workaround is to delete and reinstall the app, no one will bother reinstalling it. And when they run out of space.. guess which app will be deleted and ridden with.

[derekmorr]

I looked at the code last night and confirmed that the database is never vacuumed and auto-vacuum is not used. Those are the likely culprits.

Enabling vacuum shouldn't be difficult, but you need to strike a balance between running it often enough to reclaim space vs to often which adds overhead (and blocks other DB operations). You could use a heuristic and look at the free page pragma to see if there is enough unused space to warrant vacuum. Or if an attachment has been deleted you could look at byteCount. If those are over a threshold, you could run vacuum.

Its also worth noting that the Android and desktop apps do not call VACUUM or run auto-vacuum either.

[sgreadly]

Thanks @derekmorr ,

Is that vacuum instruction aimed at us end users? or at dev? If us, do you have any instructions on how I can do that on iOS? I don't mind doing it even if just once to significantly reduce the current size.

Ta.

[derekmorr]

It was aimed at developers. The app should vacuum its own database -- end-users should not have to do it.

[sgreadly]

Ah ok :) Thanks for the clarification.

[jonathancross]

Its also worth noting that the Android and desktop apps do not call VACUUM or run auto-vacuum either.

Given that there is not a problem reclaiming space on Android... it suggests that this is not the main culprit. Right?

[jonathancross]

@derekmorr What would be very helpful would be to simply submit a PR that demonstrates the issue for devs. It seems you have the skills for this, correct?

From there, we might get a discussion going and build a case that this is important for Signal devs to address.

[dm82m]

@EvanHahn @EvanHahn-Signal please read my comment and tell us what you think!

[dm82m]

Evan left signal 😅 not sure who we can mention here. If anyone is having a good idea please go ahead and mention.

[dm82m]

@charlesmchen-signal please help us Mathew! We love signal but this problem here kills all the love we have…

just read that assumption: #4916 (comment)

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[being-peace]

To repeat (fighting the stalebot):

@charlesmchen-signal please help us Mathew! We love signal but this problem here kills all the love we have…

just read that assumption: #4916 (comment), with the conclusion: "A solution would be, to show the "other files" in media overview as well."

Probably more difficult, but even more helpful would be a general possibility to identify and delete the largest files over all chats. The iOS and the desktop version have so limited support for the problem.

[dm82m]

@harry-signal @max-signal @elaine-signal @marissa-signal @pete-signal @sashaweiss-signal we need the help of one of you. This issue is old, a solution is named. We just need one of you reading it and answering. There are plenty of users with growing signal databases and no chance to wipe them out. Thank you!!!

[sgreadly]

Instead of new emojis for the past few releases can we PLEASE sort this s**t out !?

[desmond132518]

Instead of new emojis for the past few releases can we PLEASE sort this s**t out !?

That's exactly what stopped me from donating more to them.

[sgreadly]

We need everyone to start opening new issues asking for them to look into this one. Every other method to get their attention failed. This is the only option left. The more people do this the more attention this bug will get.

[harry-signal]

Thanks to everyone for your reports and comments; rest assured we hear you and want to help. Please understand that this is a complex problem and involves more than just files you send and receive on Signal; it also includes other data structures and metadata we use for normal app functioning.

I'm hearing three main concerns: 1. I want to manage my non-media files; 2. I want to reduce the storage footprint of file attachments on my device, particularly large files; and 3. I deleted a bunch of stuff but Signal still takes up too much space.

Unfortunately there isn't a simple solution in this space – there are challenges with how existing data is structured and stored which make it difficult or impossible to make direct quick fixes.
The good news is that we're doing some foundational work around how files are stored that will enable us tackle those three issues and more. This is long, difficult work, so no promises about the immediate future. But its being worked on!
We're also continuing to chip away at the foundational challenges across all the things we're working on.

If nothing else, know that we're users ourselves and feel this difficulty too!

Please continue with the reports and debug logs if you can provide them; we pay attention and they all help us narrow down fixes. Thank you again for your enthusiasm and support!

[dm82m]

@harry-signal I am pretty sure that 3) is not the real issue. The signal storage decreases if you delete media within the chats. I am pretty sure that it is solved as soon as signal will provide an „other media files“ section on iOS as it is already provided on android. On android it shows „media“ „files“ „audio“ and „all“. On iOS it is only „media“ and „audio“.

Edit: so even if you are willing to delete files within the chats you can’t cause you are not able to find them. You need to manually scroll through million chats and messages. Instead of just getting them shown based on the chat details and beding able to delete them.

edit2: read this: #4916 (comment)

[sgreadly]

Ok,

I just did a critical look at this bug ID so I know what exactly is outstanding and what needs to be worked on.

The bug was opened with the premise that media was deleted from a group chat, and the overall usage size still remained high - i.e., did not go down.

2 major problems caused this

1. Media section in a chat/group only displayed the past few months worth of media. So if you delete everything it's showing, you aren't actually deleting all the media for that group.
2. There's no "Select All" to select all media and delete at once. If you have a few thousand in that list, you have to manually scroll through and click on each one, then delete. And hope Signal app doesn't crash as a result (it does often).

For the first point, I think this is now resolved? I had a look at my media viewer for my chats/groups and it went back as far as early last year (the last time I installed a clean version of Signal).

IF that's true, then the only thing that needs to be done here is to implement a "Select All" so that we can delete in bulk, instead of selecting each image/video manually.

However, for all intents & purposes of this bug, I think it should be marked as resolved. I have ~13GB of media storage for Signal at the moment (Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Signal). I manually deleted a lot of videos & pics from 2 of my groups, and it dropped down to ~7GB.

@harry-signal, @dm82m, would you agree with what I said in that this specific issue should no longer exist? As for the "Select All", it should be a new feature request that references this one?

OR, is the "Signal not showing all media" part still in existence? I'm reluctant to delete all media and test mainly because I don't have the time to manually select thousands and delete them one by one ..

[ablakey]

@sgreadly I have a real-world example of having about 3.5 GB of data. My expectation is that if I delete my group chats, that will clear all the media in those group chats and this disk usage amount should go down. If that’s correct, would it help if I tried right now and see how it behaves? Anything else I could do before or after that helps with testing your assumptions about the state of these issues?

[sgreadly]

@ablakey ,

Yes that would help prove or rule this out. However, a less-data_loss way is to go into the chat group you have, view the Media files, and delete them from there. That will at least save you from deleting the text-part of your chat history which IMO is important to keep.

This is what I did, and I dropped mine down from ~13GB to ~7GB.

IF you want to know how much you're expected to drop down in data size, go to the media section, and select as many media as you can, but don't delete. It will show you on the bottom how much you will recover.

Then if you choose to delete the whole chat group itself, you should see roughly that much recovered & conclude this bug issue is 'fixed' now.

Edit here's an example. I selected several video files for one of my chat groups, and on the bottom it shows 960MB. That's how much I'd expect to free up if I deleted them, or deleted the whole chat group (assuming it only has this total number of media files). And if you go back to your Settings > iPhone storage, you should see that much in reduction too.

[ablakey]

1. I viewed the media and selected 1GB of images and videos and deleted them.

2. The usage described in iOS settings fell by 1GB.

3. I then deleted the whole chat. The app froze fully for about 10 seconds then recovered. The below screenshot shows the result. The remaining usage are my other chats.

It was rather uncomfortable not to have a “Select All” option I usually expect when interacting with a grid of media files.

But as far as I’m concerned as a user, this issue looks to be fixed.

[being-peace]

For me, it seems there are three issues:

1. Not all data is shown in the media section, as attachments (e.g. PDF...) are not there.
2. It is not easy to delete all media and attachments of one chat. You have to click through all media items one by one, if you want to preserve the chat itself.
3. It is not easy to detect the major memory usage items. I have 2GB somewhere in the hundreds of chats. I don´t know where. I guess there is some gigantic attachment somewhere, but I don´t know where. So, probably more difficult, but even more helpful would be a general possibility to identify and delete the largest files over all chats. The iOS and the desktop version have so limited support for the problem.

[sgreadly]

Hi @being-peace ,

For 1), this should be a Feature Request to add "Documents" to the list of filters under the Media. Currently it's "All Media, Photos, Videos, GIFs". Edit, we have an existing Feature request for that here: https://community.signalusers.org/t/all-media-should-include-documents-files/18228

For 2), this should also be a Feature Request to add a "Select All" option to the Media section of each group/chat. This is one major PITA we're all suffering from, and would solve a lot of problems here. We have an existing one for this here: https://community.signalusers.org/t/select-all-messages-option/55173 and here: https://community.signalusers.org/t/deleting-media-files-select-in-between/14784

For 3), this should be another Feature Request too, Edit: There already exists a feature request here: https://community.signalusers.org/t/data-and-space-management-for-ios-app/11958

However, for this specific issue here, where the overall Data usage of Signal is NOT dropping when you delete media, that is fixed. I think @b3hni4 / @harry-signal should be in a position to mark this as resolved or close it off.

[being-peace]

Thanks for your research, @sgreadly . Yet, possibly it is not visible, how these features request sum up in total to a severe problem. I added a comment.

So, the best, we can do is to vote for the feature requests you have linked to, right?

[sgreadly]

That's correct @being-peace . Put a comment in the other feature requests and vote on them. If enough do that then maybe they can implement sooner than later.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[dm82m]

Still unresolved, still a big problem. I absolutely regret my decision switching to signal.

[sgreadly]

@dm82m , Can you elaborate more via a new ticket? The issue specific to this ticket is indeed resolved. Details here onwards: #4916 (comment)

[JonasASchmidt]

I‘m facing the same problems. I deleted all media from all signal chats on my iPhone and still the app takes up more than 3,4 GB on my phone. What can I do?

[wrinkledeth]

Likewise, my iPhone is almost unusable at this point due to Signal taking up so much storage space (20+ GB).

I respect what the developers have done at Signal, but this makes me unable to recommend Signal to others in good conscience.