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Install Signal without a smartphone
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signal-without-smartphone.md

Signal on Windows without a smartphone

Requirements

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

@FSNE
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FSNE commented May 1, 2023

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?

@szepeviktor
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szepeviktor commented May 1, 2023 •
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I know no more about it than you. I am sorry.

@FSNE
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FSNE commented May 4, 2023 •
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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)?

@szepeviktor
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szepeviktor commented May 4, 2023 •
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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!

@xixianykus
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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.

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