Over the past few years, the instant messaging app Signal has gradually grown more popular around the world, and it’s currently one of the most widely-used messaging apps in Hong Kong. Signal’s main draw is that it guarantees the privacy of its users, does not post any advertisements in the app, and does not track or sell user data. Droves of netizens around the globe who care about the privacy of messaging apps have switched from using WhatsApp to Signal.
Because of its policy of “No ads. No trackers. No kidding.”, Signal does not offer the option of dedicated business accounts like WhatsApp. So businesses that want to communicate with customers using Signal will have to stick to the regular version of the Signal app. Because Signal does not offer messaging functions that are specially designed for business purposes or help to simplify marketing or customer service processes, the majority of businesses prefer to use WhatsApp Business as their primary means of communicating with customers.
Many users have gotten used to WhatsApp’s automatic storing of images and look for ways to automatically save images that they receive on Signal. Unfortunately, Signal does not currently offer an automatic image saving function. So which useful Signal functions can help users to get more functionality out of the app?
In this article, we introduce 16 of the newest hidden functions for Signal’s private chats, group chats, and system settings. To learn more about Signal’s security features, read Signal Security.
If you want to spice up Signal with your own style, you can start by customizing the color, wallpaper, and theme of your chat.
To change these settings, open up the Settings menu on a private or group chat and select Chat Color & Wallpaper, then choose the Chat Color and Set Wallpaper menus.
Signal offers three theme settings: System, Light, and Dark. If you select System mode, Signal will use the theme settings of your device.
Just like Signal’s chat wallpapers, users can set different message bubble colors for individual chats. And the color of chat boxes will even automatically match the color of the chat background to create chat visuals with a consistent overall theme.
Just like Signal’s chat wallpapers, users can set different message bubble colors for individual chats. And the color of chat boxes will even automatically match the color of the chat background to create chat visuals with a consistent overall theme.
Signal Stickers are growing more and more popular among users as a way of livening up conversations with friends, and animated Stickers allow users to express themselves even more clearly. To view your Signal account’s entire sticker collection, just tap on the Sticker symbol.
There are lots of options for finding and downloading Signal Stickers on unofficial websites. Two of the most popular sticker sites are: WhatSticker and Signal Stickers.
Creating your own Signal stickers is super easy. First you will need to prepare a sticker image pack because Signal does not currently offer an instant sticker creation feature.
To get started, download the desktop version of the Signal app and log into your account by scanning the QR Code that appears on your computer monitor, connecting your computer to the Signal app on your phone.
Next, click File and select Create/upload sticker pack. A Sticker Pack Creation Wizard will appear on your screen, asking you to add PNG files or APNG/WebP animated files to the sticker pack. Signal Stickers dimensions can be 512 x 512 pixel squares of a file size up to 300KB. To ensure that your images are the correct dimensions, visit an online image converter website to convert images to the proper size.
After uploading the files, you will need to set the emoji symbol for each sticker. The last step is the enter the Title and Author of the sticker pack and choose a cover image. Double check that everything has been input correctly, then click Upload. Congratulations - you have successfully created a sticker pack.
Now you can share a link to the sticker pack with your friends or send individual stickers during conversations, giving them a chance to download the entire sticker pack.
The Disappearing Message function automatically deletes messages after a certain length of time. Users can adjust how much time will pass before a message is deleted after it has been sent or opened. Deleted messages are completely removed from a device’s memory. For message senders, a timer will activate after a message has been sent; for recipients, a timer will activate after a message has been read. Timer settings for Disappearing Messages include 30s, 5 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours, 1 day, 1 week, 4 weeks, or a custom length of time.
Signal’s Settings menu allows users to preset Disappearing Messages for all new messages. Of course, you can also individually set Disappearing Messages for specific private or group chats, but only group administrators can give certain members the permission to change the timer settings.
Simply put, this is a tool for sending messages to yourself. It allows you to write notes for viewing at a later time, like a memo function. This can also be used to transfer files. For example, if you send a file on Notes to Self on your computer, you can also receive that file on the mobile version of Signal. Just like other messages, Notes to Self are protected using end-to-end encryption.
To send a note to yourself, tap the Compose symbol on the Signal chat page and enter your own phone number or search for yourself on your contacts list. Select Note to Self and then write and send a message to yourself.
Users can disable Read receipts and Typing status notifications in chats. To do that, go to the Settings menu and select Privacy. You can adjust settings from this menu.
Signal gives users a long window of time to delete messages. Users can delete messages from all users’ devices within 3 hours of sending them. If you can only find the Delete for Me option, this means that the 3 hour time limit has already passed.
To delete a message, press and hold the message you would like to delete, then select Delete and choose to delete the message for everyone or just for yourself.
Signal does not automatically save images, videos, or other multimedia or text files. Users need to select files to save in the chat, or individually save multimedia or text files from each contact. iOS users can only save image and video files. Android users can save multimedia, text, and voice attachments.
To do this, go to the settings page of a contact or group and open All Media, then tap See All, select one or multiple multimedia files, then tap the share icon to save files.
Adding blurring to images can help protect the privacy of the people in images, and now users don’t need to worry about the possibility of their compromising the security of their images by using third party photo editing software to add blurring. When Signal users take photos using the app or upload images from their device’s gallery, they can use Signal’s built-in Blur Faces tool to automatically detect and blur the faces in the image.
If the image contains additional areas that need to be kept private or if some areas are not fully covered, you can directly add blur to the areas you would like to conceal.
Signal’s view-once image function is similar to Snapchat in that the image instantly destructs once it has been opened. When you enable the View-once Media function on Signal, the recipient of the message can only view the image or video once.
Before sending an image or video, users can press the button located in the lower left, which will turn into a 1x symbol, indicating that the message content can only be viewed once, and will be disappear after it has been viewed.
Signal currently only supports broadcasting multimedia messages, which means that users can send multiple multimedia messages to multiple contacts, effectively broadcasting multimedia content.
To do this, go to the main page of Signal and tap on the Camera icon located in the upper right corner and take a photo or select a media file from your device. Then select one or multiple contacts and confirm sending the message.
Signal Group is a popular function among Signal users. It allows friends or family to create a group where they can communicate or talk things over as a group. To use the newest Signal group functions, make sure you have updated Signal to the latest version.
On the newest version of Signal, users can send contacts a link to join a group. Only the group admin can enable the Group Link function, but once it has been enabled, both the admin and non-admin group members can share the group invitation link.
When enabling Group Link, admins can also enable the Approve New Members button. Once this is enabled, contacts who follow the group invitation link must be approved by the admin before they can enter the group.
To enable these settings, group admins can go to Group Settings and Group Link, then enable the Approve New Members option.
You probably don’t want to miss messages from your family or friends, and might even want to reply as soon as possible. In that case, it’s a good idea to set a custom notification sound.
Signal’s preset notification options display a contact’s name, content, and operation, which means that whenever you receive a message, the notification will include the user’s name, the content of their message, and an action you can take. However, users who want to maintain their privacy might not want the content of the messages they receive to be displayed on their screen. In that case, users can select other notification options: display the name only; or do not display the name or content, to ensure messages remain private.
To change settings, enter Notifications under Signal’s Settings menu and tap Notification Content, ten select a notification method.
We all love sending our friends and family members funny or useful things we find online. iOS users can currently find the Signal App and Signal contacts when sharing recommendations, and send messages, links, media files, etc. to other Signal users.
When sharing messages from other websites or applications, the recommended share column will show your most recent Signal contacts.
To enable this function, go to Settings > Chat and select Share Contacts with iOS.
Do you feel like the mouse is a bit sluggish when using Signal on your computer? Try speeding up your message replies by using keyboard shortcuts.
When you send a link to a Signal contact, the system usually automatically generates a link preview that provides you and the other user a basic title and description of the website. For instance, if you send someone a YouTube video, the preview will include a YouTube thumbnail, subject, and description. Signal can create link preview for all websites beginning with https. To delete a preview, press the X image in the lower right corner of the preview column before sending the message.
This screen security indicates that when you switch to different applications on your phone, the Signal screen will be hidden on the app switcher. To enable this function, go to Signal > Privacy and enable Hide Screen in App Switcher.
When this function is enabled, the Signal app will cover the content of your chats with a Signal logo in your device’s app switcher. Android users can also opt to prevent their device from taking screenshots when Signal is open.
If you want to add another layer of verification before the Signal app can be opened, go to Privacy settings and enable the Screen Lock function. When this function is enabled, Signal will ask users to enter a PIN number, password, or use biometric data before they can open and use the app.
The Screen Lock Timeout requires users to input their phone’s password if they have exited the Signal App for a certain amount of time.
Transferring Signal chat history to a new phone is very simple. First download and install Signal Messenger on your new device, and select to export the content from the old device. Just follow the prompts and complete the Export Steps.
After the data has been transferred, you can start sending Signal messages on your new device, and the chat history will be deleted from your old device. You will be unable to send messages using your old device.
Signal’s offers users a wide range of functions, and using the functions covered in this article will help you to get the most out of your Signal experience. Although many users are switching from WhatsApp to Signal, WhatsApp Business still offers a more complete set of tools designed to meet the needs of business users.
The platform imBee allows you to simultaneously connect to the WhatsApp Business API and other instant messaging apps, allowing you to manage messages from multiple sources. While imBee cannot currently connect to Signal, we offer support for several other mainstream messaging apps, and can provide a wide range of automated messaging management functions which help streamline the customer service and sales processes. If your company would like to communicate with customers using Signal, please send us a message requesting that we add Signal support, and we will forward it to our team.
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