Signal: protect a conversation from the first message to your next phone

Move one conversation to Signal

Start by suggesting Signal to someone you talk to often, or a small group willing to try it. Planning a trip or exchanging family messages gives you a reason to come back to the app.

Try a message, a photo and a call together. Check that notifications arrive and everyone knows how to reply. If messages go unnoticed on one phone, fix that before moving all your conversations.

Encryption does not decide whom you should trust. Someone can copy your words or photograph their screen. Choosing the recipient and securing the phones remain part of protecting the conversation.

Your number: visible, discoverable, or both?

Signal separates phone-number visibility from the ability to find you using that number. A username lets someone start contact without you sharing the number, though registration still requires a phone number.

Review those two privacy settings separately. If you restrict discovery by number, prepare another way to share your contact with the right people. A setting cannot make someone forget a number they already know, and conversations previously connected through the number can be associated.

Before a sensitive exchange, check the conversation

The safety number in a one-to-one conversation lets you compare cryptographic information for the contact. It does not certify their legal identity. Compare it in person or through another established channel, especially for a conversation with particular consequences.

A changed safety number may simply follow a reinstall or a new device. It needs context, not an immediate conclusion. If someone announces a financial emergency in a conversation whose safety number has changed, call them using a contact route you already know.

A linked computer is part of the conversation

Desktop messaging is convenient for longer exchanges. It also adds a device to look after. Review linked devices and remove those you no longer use. Encrypted transport does not prevent reading on a computer whose session is unlocked.

Picture a shared family computer left open in the living room. The first improvement is not a cryptographic setting: it is a personal user account, a screen lock and suitable notification previews. Repeat this check after replacing a computer or lending a device.

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Disappearing messages and copies kept by the recipient

Disappearing messages set a retention period for a conversation. They can reduce the accumulation of old exchanges on devices. They cannot retrieve a secret the recipient has already read, saved or photographed.

Choose a duration that suits the conversation. A shopping list and travel arrangements need different amounts of memory. Agree on another place for information you intentionally need to keep: an address, an appointment or a shared document.

PIN and backup: prepare the right recovery method

The Signal PIN helps recover the profile and certain settings; it is not a message backup. Signal Secure Backups are a separate, optional feature protected by a 64-character recovery key the service cannot reconstruct for you.

The documentation also covers device transfers and local backups with different platform restrictions. Before replacing a phone, identify your exact case: Android to Android, iPhone to iPhone or a switch between systems. Do not treat a linked computer as a guaranteed way to restore the phone.

Checks before an important conversation

Use a few ordinary messages to check the points below before sending sensitive information. Look at what appears in notifications on linked devices as well.

1. Install the official application and exchange a few messages with someone willing to try it.
2. Choose phone-number privacy settings and inspect previews on your locked screen.
3. Review linked devices and keep only those you still control.
4. Decide whether you want to retain history. If so, prepare a suitable mechanism and protect its key separately from the phone.
5. Before changing devices, read the current procedure and keep the old phone until you have checked the result.