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@szepeviktor
Last active April 23, 2026 15:15
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Install Signal without a smartphone

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

@Jasper3232

Jasper3232 commented Apr 15, 2026

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@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.

@Ladjez

Ladjez commented Apr 16, 2026

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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 ;)

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