As the norms for how people connect have changed, much of the communication that once took place through the medium of coffee shops, bars, and parks now takes place through the medium of digital devices. One side effect of this shift from analog to digital is the conjoined shift from the ephemeral to the eternal: words once transiently spoken are now – more often than not – data stored forever.
We’ve designed Signal so that your data always stays in your hands. We think there’s something special about sharing a private fleeting moment between friends, so Signal also supports disappearing messages. Now, we’ve added the ability to preconfigure all conversations you initiate with a default disappearing messages timer.