Install Signal without a smartphone

signal-without-smartphone.md

Signal on Windows without a smartphone

Requirements

• Signal for Desktop
• Java Standard Edition
• signal-cli

Installation

Install the Signal desktop app.

Install Java either offline or online.

Download precompiled signal-cli binaries: signal-cli-*.tar.gz and extract its contents to a new directory, e.g. C:\usr\signal

Phone number registration

Replace ALL-CAPITALS with your actual values.

• bin\signal-cli.bat -u +COUNTRY-CODE-YOUR-PHONE-NUMBER register
• Receive the verification code in SMS
• bin\signal-cli.bat -u +COUNTRY-CODE-YOUR-PHONE-NUMBER verify VERIFICATION-CODE-RECEIVED-IN-SMS
• Open Signal Desktop app
• Make a cropped screenshot of the QR code
• Decode the QR code with ZXing Decoder Online
• bin\signal-cli.bat -u +COUNTRY-CODE-YOUR-PHONE-NUMBER addDevice --uri "tsdevice:/QR-CODE-PARSED-RESULT"
• bin\signal-cli.bat -u +COUNTRY-CODE-YOUR-PHONE-NUMBER listDevices

Documentation: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/man/signal-cli.1.adoc

Usage

Start using Signal without a smartphone :)

Find user data to backup in %USERPROFILE%\.local\share\signal-cli\

Supported locales are stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\signal-desktop\locales

Change locale on the command line: Signal.exe --lang=en-US

Thanks

Your welcome ❤️

Thanx
Under "Requirements"
the link of "Java Standard Edition" points to a JRE version of JAVA
It should point to JDK (such as this for windows : https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/#jdk17-windows)

Under "Requirements"
the link of "Java Standard Edition" points to a JRE version of JAVA

Thank you!
signal-cli says it needs the JRE https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/README.md#installation
What do you think?

I am sorry I am a newbee, I am not sure to understand

My understanding is that right JRE version is encompassed in the JDK and that the sole JRE program is an old version of it.

It did work for me installing JDK whereas the sole JRE install program I had didn't work

This is a gist. It has no "GitHub Issues". Please understand.

Thank you for these instructions, very helpful. I ran Signal without smartphone/mobile number for a few years but I haven't managed to make it run again on a newly installed machine. I first had trouble getting the captcha right and tried quite a few times. Now I finally managed, I keep receiving "Failed to register: [429] Rate limit exceeded: 429". I waited a few hours, but no change. Anything I can do or should I just wait longer?

I know no more about it than you. I am sorry.

OK after a few hours of cycling between "invalid captcha", endless 502 and 429 messages, I bought a sim card and registered to the new mobile number without any problem; it seems the landline option does not work anymore for me. Of course it means my old account is now floating and cannot be removed, which is not great. I tried with
bin/signal-cli -u +322xxxxxxxx unregister --delete-account
... but signal-cli responds that the user is not registered.
Any idea how to remove/unregister without access to the device which which I registered (the laptop was stolen)?

Please ask your question on a bigger forum.
Signal's forum, or signal-cli's issue.
I do not register numbers and do not use Signal.

Good luck!

A simple way to install Java is using the Winget the Windows package manager. From a command line just type:

winget install oracle.JDK.22

Unfortunately I got as far as decoding the QR code but then the next command just hung and nothing happened despite waiting some 5 minutes or so.