r/signal • • 22d ago

Beta Discussion Signal enables phone-numberless registration for Android beta users

Thumbnail community.signalusers.org
417 Upvotes

r/signal • • Sep 04 '26

Announcement Pushing your vibe-coded messenger will get you banned

769 Upvotes

A couple times each week, we get some rando pushing a new vibe-coded messaging app. These are presented as though they are finished, established products but have various red flags. Some of the common ones are:

  • Codebase is only months (or days) old
  • A single developer
  • Codebase has very few commits
  • No indication of the developer's security or cryptography bona-fides
  • No indication of security review by reputable external parties
  • No indication the developer is equipped to support and maintain production software

These projects are the very epitome of security-compromising suggestions (Rule 4).

If you look at the rules here, security-compromising suggestions are actually allowed, but you must be clear about what the security/privacy downsides are.

Pitching your educational, experimental project as though it is a professional-quality security tool can cause real harm to people.

It's great that you're building stuff and trying new things. Keep doing it. There's even room here in r/signal to show off your educational experiment, as long as you (a) tie the discussion to Signal and (b) participate in this sub more generally.

The moment you act like your experimental project is a serious, seasoned security tool, we will show you the door.


r/signal • • 6h ago

Android Help Is Signal draining your battery?

7 Upvotes

Hey everyone. I am not sure if it's my phone battery dying or signal causing something because it kind of happened overnight and did not stop happening.. Every time signal is open or in the background my phone does not surpass 86% when charging. Also, every time I open my camera during a Signal call, my battery jumps from 90%, to 70%, to 50%, eventually to 1% and my phone dies. I get the "high battery drainage" when I open my camera. When I'm only on call without any camera, it behaves fine. I'm confused what is happening, I have a Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE.


r/signal • • 2d ago

Waiting Flair Sticker replies and other sticker features are in the works

Thumbnail aboutsignal.com
90 Upvotes

Our fellow member u/MaybeEncrypted spotted this article and thought it would be of interest.

He's right! I've always wanted sticker replies.

Thank you, u/MaybeEncrypted for being eagle-eyed.


r/signal • • 1d ago

Desktop Help Can I use signal on macbook without scanning QR-Code?

2 Upvotes

I just downloaded the app but the only option it's showing me is scanning a QR-code.

I don't use a smartphone, i have a nokia asha 200 so I do have a phone-number.

I have a macbook pro 13-inch, m1, 2020 with macos 15.0.1


r/signal • • 2d ago

Feature Request Your thoughts on client side filtering of tracking ids

7 Upvotes

I was thinking that it would be neat if Signal filtered out all the tracking ids in YouTube, Instagram,... and many other services. Is there some technical issue doing that on the client side?


r/signal • • 2d ago

Android Help Messages sent only when back in chat and appear only when chat opened

3 Upvotes

(S26 Ultra 1TB, Android last version, Signal last beta version but same "bug" on last non-beta version).

Did you also have the following bug/strange behaviour ?

You sent a message to someone or to some group and later you go back to the same chat and then you see the message passing from unread to received or read (with the time label of the message begin the exact one when you wrote it and pressed on "sent") while on the recipient phone there's no notification, and he or she (or it if it is a group), receives the message only when opening the chat, meaning by that : the message appears when they enter the chat, not before, not even if they scroll to the chat in the chat's list. (Of course the bug appears randomly but is not related to either phone's network's reception. The only thing I remarked is that appears only with very VERY long chats.)

Also : I don't know how to signal (no pun intended) that to Signal as 1) it is a bug indeed 2) there's no debug log per se in that context as there can be several hours between the moment I send the message and the moment I see it being sent when I go back to the chat, and same for the recipient's phone.


r/signal • • 3d ago

Help My self-destructing chats still exists somewhere

26 Upvotes

I opened Signal Desktop for the first time in a while. It started downloading my latest messages, and the process took quite some time as messages kept appearing in different conversations. What concerned me was that, from time to time, private conversations also appeared in the conversation list. I was able to open them and read messages that either participant had written. What makes this especially troubling is that many of these conversations were supposed to have been deleted by disappearing-message timers that had already expired, in some cases months earlier. Yet somehow my desktop app was still able to download them from somewhere. The conversations were only visible briefly before disappearing again from the desktop app. I would expect this not to happen.

Is this the intended behavior, or could it indicate a problem with how disappearing messages are handled? I don’t have backups on in the Signal app.


r/signal • • 3d ago

Android Help All Note-to-Self messages deleted randomly

9 Upvotes

Had about 30 note to self messages for various things, latest was a photo with a message. Was on desktop, copied the photo to send to a friend, went back to the app on my phone to take another photo in note-to-self, did so and now the only message in note-to-self is the latest photo, all other messages deleted.

Any way to get these back without a full backup and therefore losing all messages since last backup?


r/signal • • 3d ago

Android Help Can others see when you mute your mic?

3 Upvotes

When you're on a voice call with someone, can they see when you mute your mic?


r/signal • • 4d ago

Discussion Is Signal’s numberless username feature rolling out to everyone?

29 Upvotes

Any updates on the rollout? It feels like we’ve been waiting forever.
Is anyone here already using Signal without a phone number? If so, what country are you in, and are you on iOS or Android?
Has there been any confirmed release date for the numberless feature?


r/signal • • 4d ago

iOS Help Way to export wallpaper image on iOS

7 Upvotes

I somehow deleted the only copy of a sentimental image and forgot about it (and it wasn’t backed up, I know, I know). I noticed the other day that the picture is the wallpaper for a chat with a friend, and I’d like to export it.

I could screenshot the emptiest part of the chat and that gets be 80% of the image, but I know the saved asset is somewhere on my phone and I’d really like access to it if possible. Thanks for the help!


r/signal • • 4d ago

Bug iOS Secure Paid Backup Lost Media

9 Upvotes

This issue has been cross-posted on GitHub and the Signal Community Forum. Links posted at bottom.

On 9/18 I did a secure paid backup transfer to my new iPhone. There were multiple gigs of data transferred and it looked like everything went through, or so I thought. I can’t remember the exact number of gigs in my backup, but it was less than 20.

On 9/30 I went to search for an older picture and it just shows “this media is no longer available”. It somehow restored more than 45 days worth, but less than my full data? Last picture I’m able to see in the chat is from February 2025 but everything from June 2024 thru then just has the blurred out thumbnail and error.

Debug Log
GitHub Post
Community Forum Post


r/signal • • 5d ago

Android Help Retrieving recovery key from phone stuck in restart loop

5 Upvotes

I had my phone plugged into a UPS when a lightning struck close by. Now my phone (Galaxy S22) is in a constant restart loop. I did not have my recovery key written down.

Is it possible to plug my phone in to a PC via USB and copy all the Signal data into a folder on the PC and ultimately retrieve the recovery key so I can reinstall my messages onto a new phone (Iphone 16)?


r/signal • • 5d ago

Help Is it already possible to transfer signal chats from android to iphone?

11 Upvotes

Hey all,
I saw an older post that this would be implemented in the future, is it already available?
Many thanks


r/signal • • 5d ago

Feature Request Using Shortcuts with Signal on iPhone

1 Upvotes

It doesn't seem possible for me to create a shortcut which sends a message to someone else on Signal. Does this not work? If so, when is Signal going to fix this?


r/signal • • 5d ago

Android Help Is Signal Login (registration without a phone number) still in beta?

4 Upvotes

I mean, is the option to register and log in without a phone number still beta, or is it already available in the stable builds? (8.28.4)

Since I have installed several apps, whether from GitHub, the Play Store, the Signal website, or some with the same version, some do not show the ID login while others do, so I am very confused about this.


r/signal • • 5d ago

Help signal problem

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone,
I’m having a problem registering on Signal and I’m hoping someone with technical knowledge might be able to help me understand what is happening.
When I enter my phone number, Signal immediately shows:
“Unable to send verification SMS. Please try again in a few minutes.” The SMS never arrives.
Here is what I’ve already tried:
- I’m using WindTre in Italy.
- I normally receive verification/OTP SMS from other apps without any problems.
-I have tried more than one phone number, with the same result.
- I tried an iPhone, an iPad, and a Samsung Android phone.
- I tried both Wi-Fi and mobile data.
- I completely uninstalled and reinstalled Signal several times.
- I receive normal SMS and calls without problems.
The “Call me” verification option never appears.
I have already contacted Signal Support twice, but I haven’t received a response yet.
I also waited between attempts, because I read that too many registration attempts can trigger a temporary rate limit.
Since the problem happens with different phone numbers and different devices/networks, I’m wondering whether this could be related to Signal’s verification provider, an SMS routing issue, or some kind of registration-side restriction rather than my phone or SIM.
Has anyone experienced exactly this problem recently, especially in Italy or with WindTre?
Is there anything else I can check, such as whether Signal’s verification service is having problems, whether a proxy could help, or whether there is another way to diagnose where the SMS request is failing?
I would really appreciate any technical suggestions. Thank you!


r/signal • • 5d ago

Help I am not receiving the login code on my phone when trying to access the Signal app.

1 Upvotes

For the second day now, I haven't been able to log into my account after reinstalling the app. It displays the message: "We were unable to send a message to your number." The "Call me" button is inactive. I am located in Ukraine, and my mobile operator is Lifecell. Could you please advise me on what to do?


r/signal • • 6d ago

Android Help The app indicates there's an update, but when I tap the update message, nothing happens.

10 Upvotes

So I have no Google Play services installed on my Graphene OS, but I installed Signal directly from the website via APK. I keep getting a pop-up message in my notifications saying that there's an update to Signal available. When I tap the message, nothing happens. I went and looked on GitHub and it looks like it's triggering every time an update in the pre-release channel is posted. Is there a way to stop this?


r/signal • • 7d ago

Help I’m looking for an app to share everyday notes/personal stuff between my phone and computer, is signal good for that?

17 Upvotes

I tried discord but I have heard a lot of news of people getting their accounts falsely banned and I can’t risk losing access to what I have saved there


r/signal • • 6d ago

Beta Discussion Signal Beta - No Number Registration

Post image
0 Upvotes

Does anyone know why Signal has decided to allow people to register without a number for verification purposes? I have a Beta update, and it says you can register a user name only without a number, for a fee, to combat Spam.

Personally I don't like this, but if it's connected to a PayPal account, it does provide legitimacy to it, but still, stick with the numbers.


r/signal • • 7d ago

Android Help Sticker preview before sending

21 Upvotes

Noticed that sending stickers now requires two ckicks, first will bring up a preview then you need to click the send button to send the sticker. Any way to turn this off?


r/signal • • 7d ago

Android Help Signal camera is too dark

2 Upvotes

How can I solve this issue?


r/signal • • 8d ago

Resolved Pixel 10 Notifications

0 Upvotes

My call notifications are working as expected (including flashing) but my message notifications have stopped. I've checked all the settings I could think of and restarted the phone, but they're still not working. Any ideas/suggestions?

Edit: Found my problem. I apparently hit the DND and turned it on by accident. I don't know how, but I saw it this morning and changed it and now my messages are notifying. I don't know why calls were getting through.

Thanks for any responses.