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

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.

Hi,
Thank you for the instructions!
I have a problem entering the qrcode result.
The following message appears:

Invalid device link
pub_key' is not recognized as an internal or external command
or external command, an executable program or a command file.
capabilities' is not recognized as an internal or external command
or external command, an executable program or a command file.

(The words "pub_key=" and "capabilities=" appear in the qr code device link I received)

Can you help me please ? Thanks a lot

Invalid device link pub_key' is not recognized as an internal or external command or external command, an executable program or a command file. capabilities' is not recognized as an internal or external command or external command, an executable program or a command file.

Hi there!
I solved my problem, I note here the solution if it can help someone: the problem came from the fact that I was using Windows Powershell.
I performed the same operations but with Cmd instead of Powershell, and it worked!

ZXing Decoder Online is currently not available. What worked for me was: https://qrcoderaptor.com/

Maybe of help for Signal Desktop users on Linux:
Furthermore, in the signal-cli command above (the one with addDevice), the URI has a different pattern for me. The link in the decoded QR code does not start with tsdevice:/... but sgnl://linkdevice?uuid=.... When I use this link for the --uri parameter, I was able to add the device.

@Celine311 that fix helped, thank you! After switching to CMD instead of Powershell, it worked immediately.

Hi everyone, and ty szepeviktor for this useful client !

I download the latest version of the client, because Signal wasn't working anymore with the one I used, and now the registration process seems to be quite different.

Following the first step, my terminal ask what's on the screenshot :

I tried different things, but I don't really know where I've to paste the link I get after solving the captcha. Before getting the verification code by SMS, I guess. If anybody have any clue about this, I'd like to hear it !

Cheers

@Ladjez it has to be appended to the first command so for example: bin\signal-cli.bat -u +COUNTRY-CODE-YOUR-PHONE-NUMBER register --captcha YOUR-LINK

The command where you have to use the qr code is also no longer correct(bin\signal-cli.bat -u +COUNTRY-CODE-YOUR-PHONE-NUMBER addDevice --uri "tsdevice:/QR-CODE-PARSED-RESULT"). I got a uri starting with "sgnl://linkdevice?..." from the qr code. Using bin\signal-cli.bat -u +COUNTRY-CODE-YOUR-PHONE-NUMBER addDevice --uri "QR-CODE-PARSED-RESULT" was successful.

The tool i used to decrypt the qr code did not encode the url properly. I hade to use https://www.urldecoder.org/ to convert it to utf-8. If your url contains "%2B" , "%3D" or something similar you might need to use a tool like this. It seems like the uri is only valid for a few minutes.

Can confirm this method did work today to register an account and use signal desktop on windows. Maybe @szepeviktor can update the instructions.

Hi @Jasper3232 and thanks a lot for your help, it worked !

I tried using the command --uri "tsdevice:/QR-CODE-PARSED-RESULT" and ZXing Decoder Online, and it worked for me. Even if the uri started with sgnl://linkdevice...

Thanks again for the captcha verification process, and hope those comments will help many users ;)