What is signal-account-switcher?

It's a simple tool that allows you to run multiple instances of signal-desktop (four additional accounts) on your laptop/PC. All major platforms are supported (Windows, Linux, Mac).

I want to use multiple signal accounts on Windows without installing new software

Then, please follow this tutorial on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TejhH80jktE

How can I use signal-account-switcher?

1. First, download signal-acccount-swichter from the release page. You can also use these direct download links:

• Download for Windows
• Download for Linux. If you're using Arch Linux, you can use the AUR package.
• Download for Mac (ARM)
• Download for Mac (amd/x64)

2. After downloading it, you can find the signal-account-swichter application your Downloads directory. You don't need to install signal-account-switcher. It's just this single file. You can move the file wherever you want (like to your Desktop).
3. To run signal-account-switcher, check the following notes:

• If you're on Windows, please watch this video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG4Lsqlrq3Y

  

  • Comment: In the video, you can't see the actual Signal Desktop window. There is a Signal symbol in the taskbar/system tray though. This is a security feature by Signal that prevents screen recording of the Signal app. It was added after Microsoft introduced Recall.

• If you're on Linux, go into your Downloads directory, right click signal-account-switcher, go to "Properties", then "Permissions" and enable the "Allow run this file as a program" checkbox. Then double click signal-account-switcher in your file explorer to start it.

How does it work?

In signal-desktop, you cannot just add a new signal account. But you can start the signal-desktop application with a command line parameter to specify a different data directory. This is what signal-account-switcher is doing:

1. Start signal-account-switcher. Click on "Start signal account #1"
2. For the new signal account, a new data directory is created ($working_dir/Signal-Account-1)
3. signal-desktop is executed with the parameter --user-data-dir=$working_dir/Signal-Account-1

Depending on your operating system, $working_dir is ~/.config (Linux), $HOME/Library/Application (Mac) or %AppData% (Windows). The data directory of the main Signal account is called Signal.

How can I delete/backup/migrate a Signal account?

Please read the "How does it work?" section to find Signal's data directory. If you want to remove all data from a Signal account, just delete the directory in the working directory. If you want to back up the Signal account or move it to a different computer, you just have to copy/move the data directory to a backup disk or a different computer.

How does it look like?

How to build it

If you're on Linux/Mac, just use:

go build -o signal-account-switcher ./main.go
strip signal-account-switcher
file signal-account-switcher
signal-account-switcher: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=c60867bc53ad2ff8f56622bf24c85842f2cec213, for GNU/Linux 4.4.0, stripped

Cross-compile for Windows and Mac

To cross-compile it for Windows and Mac, use fyne-cross (needs Docker)

go install github.com/fyne-io/fyne-cross@latest
ls $GOPATH/bin/fyne-cross

Cross-compilation for Windows:

sudo $GOPATH/bin/fyne-cross windows -name signal-account-switcher.exe
[i] Target: windows/amd64
[i] Cleaning target directories...
[✓] "bin" dir cleaned: /home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/fyne-cross/bin/windows-amd64
[✓] "dist" dir cleaned: /home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/fyne-cross/dist/windows-amd64
[✓] "temp" dir cleaned: /home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/fyne-cross/tmp/windows-amd64
[i] Checking for go.mod: /home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/go.mod
[✓] go.mod found
[i] Building binary...
[✓] Binary: /home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/fyne-cross/bin/windows-amd64/signal-account-switcher.exe
[i] Packaging app...
[✓] Package: /home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/fyne-cross/dist/windows-amd64/signal-account-switcher.exe.zip
kmille@linbox:signal-account-switcher file /home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/fyne-cross/bin/windows-amd64/signal-account-switcher.exe
/home/kmille/projects/signal-account-switcher/fyne-cross/bin/windows-amd64/signal-account-switcher.exe: PE32+ executable (GUI) x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows, 12 sections
kmille@linbox:signal-account-switcher

Cross-compilation for Mac:
Hmpf, the docs say you need the "Command Line Tools for Xcode". I can't get them without an account...

Build Cleanup

sudo docker rmi fyneio/fyne-cross:1.3-windows
sudo docker rmi fyneio/fyne-cross:1.3-base-llvm