It's 2018 and there's no single messaging/chat/instant messaging app that is/has:

* FOSS
* encrypted/security-aware
* plain-text export of all messages for all time
* search across all messages

@vickysteeves What about #xmpp? Or maybe #signal?

@gwenn no plain text export or searching on signal, unfortunately (I use it currently for texting).

I tried xmpp and found it a bit difficult. I can take another look though I suppose, if you like it?

@vickysteeves Did you tried the backup function in #signal? In newer versions i can use searching over all chats. #xmpp is powerfull, but you need more technical skills. There are huge clients, api, servers....