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

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.