How to Switch from WhatsApp to Signal?

Signal’s popularity has skyrocketed in the past few days, after endorsements from famous personalities including the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and American informant Edward Snowden. In fact, the app has topped the App Store’s top free lists in various countries, including Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, and Switzerland. If you’re considering deleting your WhatsApp account and switching to Signal, here’s what you need to know before pulling the trigger.

Switch from WhatsApp to Signal

If you’ve been searching for the best WhatsApp alternatives, you may have come across Signal. Today we’re going to take a look at how you can use the secure messaging app to stay away from WhatsApp.

Creating a Signal Account

Right now, You need a phone number to create a Signal account and add friends in Signal. However, in a recent Reddit AMA, Signal’s development team said: approved plans to introduce the user identity system. Therefore, you will soon be able to add users to Signal without knowing their phone number, a flexibility currently available in Telegram.

You can use Signal on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac and Linux. Depending on the device you are using, you can: Download Signal from the official website. However, it is worth noting that create a Signal account on mobile first to access the desktop version. To get started, install the app, enter your phone number and wait for the verification code. You may have encountered verification code delivery issues over the weekend as Signal was not prepared for this unprecedented user adoption. However, the organization has since upgraded its infrastructure to support the transition.

Migrating Personal Chats to Signal

If you are someone who has a lot of valuable messages on WhatsApp, it may not be appropriate to switch to a new messaging platform. While you cannot fully migrate old conversations from WhatsApp to Signal, you can export a copy of your old messages and choose to save them in Signal.

process includes export a chat as a text file and post it to the ‘Note to Self’ section in Signal. You can choose to export media files only by tapping on the ‘Medialess’ option or send the media files with the ‘Include Media’ button. If Signal does not appear on the share page, select one of the file explorers to save the text file. You can then manually submit the file to the ‘Note to Self’ section of Signal.

After exporting the chats, you can: start a new conversation by tapping the pen action button. You will now see the contacts that are on Signal. Tap the person you want to talk to and the conversation window will appear.

One feature I love when starting a new conversation is that it shows if the person is part of a shared group. That way, I can easily tell if an incoming message is from someone I really know. Of course, you can view mutual groups in other messaging apps as well, but showing this at the beginning of a conversation is a nice touch.

• Message Requests

Another useful Signal feature is that the app displays message requests from which you can choose to accept, block or delete a contact. It’s a lifesaver if you often get spam messages just because you’re part of a public group or someone managed to get your phone number.

• Supported Formats and Limits

Signal supports text messages, pictures, videos, encrypted voice and video calls, GIFs, voice memos, contacts, location and stickers. You can do Send files up to 100MB in SignalSame as what you get on WhatsApp.

• stickers

Signal recommends doing a web search or browsing Twitter using the hashtag #makeprivacystick to discover new stickers. As an alternaive, Browse Signal Stickers – An open source project that serves as the unofficial sticker directory for Signal. Although Signal does not officially support animated stickers, you can add animated stickers from Signal Stickers and use them without any problems. I’ve tried the animated stickers and I can assure you it works well in both personal chats and groups.

But here’s what I don’t like about stickers in Signal: You cannot quote messages when sending stickers from sticker packs. As someone who often gets involved in sticker wars in WhatsApp and Telegram groups, I’m disappointed to see this minor annoyance in Signal. Of course, quoting messages to send stickers may not be that important to you, but it’s something to consider when you switch to Signal. If you want to quote messages while sending stickers, a workaround is to use the GIF interface and choose the stickers offered by Giphy.

how sad @signalapp does not support tags in quoted answers. You can still get stickers if you access the ones offered by Giphy from the GIF interface. I hope they fix this soon. pic.twitter.com/1qAbtkEqMr

— Subin B (@subin23k) January 11, 2021

• encryption

Signal is one of the very few secure messaging apps built with privacy in mind. All messages you send in Signal are end-to-end encrypted. Actually, WhatsApp uses Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption. According to Signal, the messaging app has no access to your contacts, social graph, group data, group membership, profile name, profile avatar, location data, gif searches, and doesn’t come with trackers, ads, or analytics. And with the endorsements of privacy advocates like Edward Snowden, you could say Signal is the gold standard when it comes to secure online messaging. You can read more about Signal’s approach to privacy on the company’s descriptive right. here.

Migrating Group Chats to Signal

If you want to import a copy of your WhatsApp messages to Signal, you can follow the same process outlined for personal chats. To recall, open the group, tap on it. More -> Export Chat and select one of the file explorers from the share sheet and save the file, then post the file in group chat or ‘Note to Self’.

If you’ve used Signal long enough, you may remember that Signal groups aren’t as feature-rich as they are now. In December 2019, Signal updated the private group system Introducing new features such as group link or QR code invitations along with optional admin approval, mentions, admin controls for user management, group info editing and disappearing message timer. Groups created before this upgrade are called Legacy groups. Since the new groups use the updated group system, you can enjoy all the features mentioned above. Signal supports a total of 1000 members in groups.

• Creating a new Signal group

To create a new Signal group, tap the FAB item in the lower right corner and select ‘New group’. Immediately after tapping this, you can select the members you want to add to the group.

After selecting the members, set a profile photo and name for the group. When done, tap the ‘Create’ button to create the group.

• Group Connection Sharing

After creating the group, tap on it and Select ‘Group link’. Now you can Press the Share button to share the invite link with your friends on WhatsApp. If the group link is leaked in any way, you always have the option to reset the link by tapping the ‘Reset link’ button. When you do this, Signal will cancel the old link and create a new invite link for your group.

• Adding new Administrators

If you’ve never used Signal, adding new administrators can be a bit of a hassle. Unlike WhatsApp where you can long press one of the members to access the admin promotion option, in Signal you have to tap a member. From the drop-down menu that now appears, Select ‘Make group admin’.

Switch to Signal for Secure Messaging

For those new to Signal, feel free to browse through our content on the best Signal tips and tricks to get to know the app better and get comfortable with it. I also recommend checking out our Signal vs WhatsApp vs Telegram comparison to know what the competition has to offer. While not as feature-packed as Telegram, Signal offers the best privacy features you can get to stay connected with friends and family. If you prefer Telegram to Signal, check out our WhatsApp to Telegram migration guide.