signal-back : File can’t be opened/found – Password rejected – please help

[Rachelggggg]

Dear all,
please please help.

I think you can tell, I have no clue what I am doing but I am desperate to not lose my chat history because my version of Signal expired 3 days ago and I don’t have access the number I registered with anymore.
I am just trying to extract chats to PDF ideally, otherwise I settle for a text file with chats, dates and time stamps.
Any help you can give is immensely appreciated.
I have tested my Signal password multiple times on the Signal app and it works fine. So the password is not the issue.

This is what I am using:
“signal-back_windows_amd64”
“Windows 7 Home Premium/ 64-bit Operating System”
The size of my backup file is 260MB.
I have an android phone.

I went to the folder where both the backup file and the “Signal Back” program are located. I opened the Command Prompt and typed in “signal-back_windows_amd64 format -f XML -o backup.xml signal-2022-09-23-18-17-44” which then asked for the password. I have made sure that I entered it correctly with and without spaces. I have typed in manually and pasted it. Also both ways. I always get this response.

“Error: failed to open backup file: unable to open backup file: the system cannot find the file specified.”

Could somebody please help?
These chats are so important to me.
Any help or suggestions are much appreciated.
Sabine

[NickSto]

What folder is the command prompt showing when you run that command? When you give the name of your backup file ("signal-2022-09-23-18-17-44"), it assumes you mean it's in the same folder that the command prompt is in. Also, make sure you include the file extension in the filename you give (like "signal-2022-09-23-18-17-44.backup").

To change the folder your command prompt is in, use the cd command (like cd C:\Users\Yourname\Downloads). You'll want to move it to the folder your backup file is in.

If it's confusing, there are a lot of tutorials on the basics of the Windows command prompt you can look up.