Signal History Search

Direct SQL search against Signal Desktop's encrypted database. Queries complete in under 1 second against live data.

When to use

• You need to quote or summarize prior Signal conversations.
• You already have Signal Desktop installed on macOS.
• You want fast, instant search without export delays.

How it works

1. Retrieves the encryption key from macOS Keychain (Signal Safe Storage)
2. Decrypts the key using PBKDF2 (same as Signal Desktop)
3. Opens the SQLite database directly with SQLCipher
4. Runs SQL queries against messages and conversations tables
5. No files are written; searches happen in memory

First run caches the Python environment path (~5-10s setup), subsequent runs are sub-second.