How to Make Sure Your Private Signal Messages Aren't Still Lurking on Your Phone

Your private messages sent through the Signal messaging app might not be as hidden as you think -- even if you delete the app. Reporting by 404 Media this week found the FBI was able to extract messages from inside an iPhone's notification system, long after the user had deleted the privacy-focused messaging app. 

In July 2025, a group of people set off fireworks and vandalized property at the ICE Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas, an incident that resulted in one police officer being shot in the neck and nine people being arrested and charged with domestic terrorism. It was revealed during the trial, 404 Media reported, that the FBI was able to extract Signal private messages, which were used as evidence, from an iPhone's notification database. 

An FBI special agent testified that the Signal app had already been removed from the phone when the FBI looked it over. A witness to the testimony told 404 Media that the messages were set to disappear, which is a feature of the app. The app successfully deleted the message, but the iPhone held onto it. 

This is a big deal, because Signal Private Messenger is an encrypted messaging service, and messages sent through the service shouldn't be visible if the app has been deleted from the phone. The FBI was able to extract the data because the messages were displayed through the iPhone's notification system, which saved those messages to the phone's internal database. 

Representatives for Signal, Apple and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The loophole presents a security concern for iPhone owners who assume that their messages are forever private if they use an encrypted messaging service, and according to John Davisson, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, there's no clear reason why those messages should still be there after the app was deleted. 

"Someone who deletes a secure messaging app reasonably expects that their messages won't hang around indefinitely or be retrievable if the device falls into untrusted hands," Davisson told CNET in an email. "Apple owes it to the public to fix this problem, and developers should consider warning their users of the risk until that happens."

All nine of the defendants in that trial were found guilty in mid-March on charges ranging from aiding in domestic terrorism to attempted murder. 

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How to protect your privacy

Signal has a setting that prevents this very problem from happening to others. You choose not to display any information in push notifications, so that if they're stored in an iPhone, they can't be extracted later by the authorities. If you want your messages to truly vanish, this is the step you should take. 

To do this, open Signal and take the following steps. They should be the same on Android and iOS.

• Open the Settings menu and navigate to Notifications.
• Find where it says Show and change that setting to No name or message.

That's the whole process. Once that setting is set, you'll still get push notifications, but the notification won't show who sent the message or what the message says. You'll have to open the app every time to reply to messages, but this ensures that messages aren't saved on the iPhone's internal storage indefinitely, ready to be plucked out by an untrusted individual.

"In our Surveillance Self-Defense guide, we advise users to check the settings of their secure messaging tools and change them according to their security needs," said Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Signal has the option to control what (if anything) is shown in notifications, while for other apps, you may need to dive into the settings of notifications more generally."