Top Developer

Signal Private Messenger

113,763

Open Whisper Systems Communication

Everyone

Signal Private Messenger- screenshot thumbnail

Privacy is possible, Signal makes it easy.

Using Signal, you can communicate instantly while avoiding SMS fees, create groups so that you can chat in real time with all your friends at once, and share media or attachments all with complete privacy. The server never has access to any of your communication and never stores any of your data.

★ Say Anything. Signal uses an advanced end to end encryption protocol that provides privacy for every message every time.

★ Open Source. Signal is Free and Open Source, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. Signal is the only private messenger that uses open source peer-reviewed cryptographic protocols to keep your messages safe.

★ Be Yourself - Signal uses your existing phone number and address book. There are no separate logins, usernames, passwords, or PINs to manage or lose.

★ Group Chat. Signal allows you to create encrypted groups so you can have private conversations with all your friends at once. Not only are the messages encrypted, but the Signal server never has access to any group metadata such as the membership list, group title, or group icon.

★ Fast. The Signal protocol is designed to operate in the most constrained environment possible. Using Signal, messages are instantly delivered to friends.

★ Speak Freely - Make crystal-clear phone calls to people who live across town, or across the ocean, with no long-distance charges.

Signal is not currently compatible with tablets, but support for larger screens is on our roadmap and will be included in a future release!

For support, questions, or more information, please visit:
http://support.whispersystems.org

More details:
http://www.whispersystems.org/#encrypted_texts

Source code:
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android

Reviews

4.6

113,763 total

5 81,892

4 22,365

3 5,050

2 1,768

1 2,688

Cat Thomas

Downloaded after hearing the Note to Self podcast's first episode of their privacy paradox series. I'm pleased to have a secure messaging app that has a great looking UI and plenty of features. The only feature I'd like to see is being able to search all your messages for certain words or phrases in addition to searching your conversation list for specific conversations. Other than that I am really impressed with the app! Great work :)

Love this app. If possible I always try to use it to communicate with people. Sadly, it is not as popular as other messaging apps. Also, the PC chrome app for this is also wonderful. Feels fast and not as cluttered and chunky as Skype. It could use some improvements e.g. It does not separate history by days so it might get confusing at times. I guess the biggest feature that it needs right now is an ability to create an account without phone number, though.

LIK3 A

Signal adopts a strong evidence-based approach to security, but lacks extensibility for practical use. Functionally it is excellent, but user experience could be better. Users can create groups and send disappearing messages, but the reminder to invite contacts to join Signal should be optional. Carriers recycling numbers means Signal has an advantage over WhatsApp because it requires manual validation. However, back up messages are stored in plaintext rather than certificate and key/password.

A simple, secure messaging service. And it's open source. It's the best (text based) messaging choice at the moment. However, there are a few issues. Notably syncing. If you haven't been on a device for a while, prepare to sit and wait while all the messages sync. Also loses one star for being dependent on Google Play Services.

Quartupp Kachupp

Like all good apps they just need more users without the reminders to invite other users "we" will forget . I suspect an option to remove the banner nag will cause that. I invite my friends but most of them are the ignorant ones who one day may find them self's on the end of a inquiry

Lor Parsons

Seems like this update was not properly debugged. The date sticky seems to be the problem. Now all my messages jump around. Multiple duplicates. Missing messages. Messages out of order. What a mess. First they dumbed down the time stamp on the messages after an hour, now this. Lets go back to the simple and precise 24 hour military time possible time stamps on every message. The app is getting too complicated and with these bugs I'm can't help but ask myself if this app is secure enough anymore.

User reviews

Cat Thomas February 13, 2017

February 13, 2017

LIK3 A February 6, 2017

February 5, 2017

Quartupp Kachupp February 7, 2017

Lor Parsons February 5, 2017

Paul Sc February 10, 2017

I only get to use it with my one brother. I guess not everyone cares about big brother collecting all communications you make. I use it to make calls (love the sonar ringtone) and the confirmation phrase to verify a secure call. And also the texting. If I could get most my other contacts to use I'd make it my default messenger/caller. Thank you!

notstarboard February 2, 2017

And this coming from someone who didn't download it for security reasons either. It's best feature in my eyes is its blazing speed. I might uninstall over the "Invite to Signal" banner at the top of every conversation though. It's obnoxious. There are also few in the way of customization options. I would at the very least like an option to remove all contact photo bubbles. That alone would make me like it a lot more. Edit: Please get rid of the sticky time stamps. They're too big and draw my eye away from the text. The old implementation was better.

David Wallis February 6, 2017

My biggest complaint is that group messages are too hard to read with full coloured backgrounds. Messages in all chats are spaced too far apart. My group chat moved here from Telegram for privacy reasons, but I'm not enjoying the experience. As a basic messaging app it works fine.

Peter Simons February 4, 2017

Text messaging with Signal works fine. Voice calls don't work at all. All I see when I try to call someone is a black screen. Other applications like WhatsApp and Hangouts don't have that problem on my phone. Another problem I have had is that Signal won't let me send video recordings. The app complains that the message is too large and exceeds its limit -- even though the video runs just for a minute. Other tools don't seem to have this issue.

David Hlouch February 5, 2017

Problems with MMS, texting more recipients fails as well. Doesn't recognize groups from Google account nor internal (Samsung). Annoying invite pop up at every contact for the first time. Otherwise a decent app.

Slaught Er February 4, 2017

Great texting app all around. Security never hurts, I like having an extra password on my communication and knowing that it's encrypted. Features between other signal users work well. Only downside is the slightly-too-frequent updates that cause issues.

February 5, 2017

good app, but not possible to select more pictures at once when sending, only one by one. not possible to forward easily whole conversation thread, need to select messages one by one and their formatting will be messed anyway when formatting, seem so simple user case scenarios were not thought about. oh yeah and that banner Invite to Signal is extremely annoying as well

Jake Reisenbichler February 12, 2017

The only reason I don't give this app 5 stars is because messaging more than one person at a time requires that you create a group first. A small complaint but this makes it harder to get your parents on board....

Rogerio Luis February 4, 2017

Promising app, but lacks some important privacy features: 1. Possibility to hide app and launch from the dialer; 2. Change "You have new Signal message" to something more subtle like news or weather update; 3. Possibility to lock the app ass soon as you leave the app (home button...)

Sam Whited February 1, 2017

Looks nice, but pesters you constantly to advertise to your contacts (every single time you start a new conversation that it hadn't seen before) and pops up wanting you to rate it. Also has iPhone emoticons for some reason so it doesn't look consistent with anything else on your phone (this can be turned off, but it's an annoying default that doesn't make much sense). Also the server doesn't federate and you can't run your own.

February 3, 2017

I really like the app! The setting options & so forth. However, will no longer use due to your consistent 'Invite to Signal' notification within each message - Too obnoxious !

Mysterious Benefactor February 7, 2017

So a new problem has arisen, though I'm not really sure it's Signal. Something's cutting off texts from iPhone users that are very long. I guess I'll test and see. Update: Samsungs default messenger didn't cut off when I had the person copy paste the same message. Might be Signal after all, I guess.

Andrew Shearn February 4, 2017

After using this for a couple of weeks, I am done with it. Works for about 24 hours and then I have to unregister and then register again for it to work. Unable to find a solution. Galaxy S7. Have submitted multiple bug logs. No response.

February 11, 2017

I don't have the tech knowledge to comment on its security capabilities, but in terms of user experience it's been pretty good. I like how you can set colours for the different people in your contacts list. Possible improvements: - Would prefer if those colours weren't the background to the text, and/or if you could set custom colours using CSS; in practice some of the preset colours aren't useful, because of insufficient contrast with the text, and even some of the usable ones are a bit glaringly bright for a background. - Had one experience where I'd run out of credit and it wouldn't send the message but didn't tell me why, and it took me a while to figure out. A more informative error message would've been useful at that point. I'm not sure if the phone gives Signal access to my phone credit level, so maybe it couldn't've actually told me why, but it could have had a "more info" link with "here's some things to check", and from memory I don't think it did. All in all though, thanks for making this useful app.

D K. February 2, 2017

Signal, you're one cheeky messaging app that supposedly sends encrypted messages across logging networks. However my antivirus doesn't appreciate you having unauthorized access to my device. That said, you will remain 2 stars until you explain your reasonings or change the authorizations. #uninstall

Farrell Marcure Jr. February 10, 2017

I love so many of the features in this app that I can't see myself ever going to anything less. This app has continued to evolve & gotten even better! It does so much now & does it all securely. I trust this app like no other!

chrome minion February 12, 2017

I got the app for secure texting, #1. Minor annoyances include no MMS abilities, and I haven't even bothered to try secure voice with it. I would expect the app to work best with a Google Nexus phone right out the gate but I've noticed occasional bugginess when sending txt which is the main reason it gets 4 stars from me. It works most of the time for txting which is good enough for me, and I appreciate the developer's philosophy in general.

Ben Whitelaw February 6, 2017

Very well designed app. The interface is familiar and modern and the experience is fast and responsive. The encryption feature is a huge draw and the sms support is a nice bonus. My only issue is the lack of Android wear support. If Android wear was supported I would likely switch to signal as my daily sms driver.

CryADsisAM February 3, 2017

The app is excellent, however, I would love to see a way to know who is online and who is not, to know when to send an encrypted msg or an insecure SMS if I want it delivered asap. Encrypted messages require the sender to go online which can often not be possible. Right now I need to first check if encrypted msg is delivered - if not, I have to resend it as an insecure SMS if I want it delivered asap. It's kinda a hassle. Great app regardless.

Grace Lee February 9, 2017

I've used this for over a year now on an htc and sasumg galaxy with ZERO problems. My friend said his LG wasn't liking it but to be honest if you knew his character I think you'd possibly doubt it was Signal's fault. Sucks one must convince others to use it in order for it to be completely encrypted but again, not Signal's fault.

Walter Lau February 3, 2017

I noticed once I make a signal call to another signal user I am unable to receive regular phone calls on my T Mobile LG G5. I have to unmount and mount my sim card to be able to receive regular phone calls again. It's a nice "secure" app but I find Textra better for texting.

Frederik Seidelin February 11, 2017

Audio codec makes for terrible audio quality. One other downside is that if a contact is offline but still on the GSM network they won't receive your message - makes complete sense (especially for security's/encryption's sake) but is still irritating if your contact is in an area with patchy reception. Otherwise great.

Wystan Palm February 11, 2017

This is a great app for anyone who is sad that WhatsApp sold out to the man. Now that Facebook has bought WhatsApp and changed the privacy policy, this is my preferred app to securely message my friends. Comes with all the good features you'll need.

Bryan Kobe February 10, 2017

Love the app for it's privacy and encryption. The only downside I found was not being able to batch select and delete old messages. It has to be done one by one, something that is easily done in the stock Android messaging app.

El Al February 10, 2017

It's a really simple and helpful app. Security features add up to it's advantages. Though I think a "remove the selected contact from group" option in group conversations would be helpful, as well as one aggregated notification for all missed messages in a conversation, with a notification pointer set at the earliest missed message instead of the latest.

Helio P. February 6, 2017

After being a victim of hackers and suffer online shaming, I feel a lot more secure using Signal. In addition to several security features, it's easy to understand and has a nice interface with a comfortable dark theme. Besides, it comes with Snowden's blessings! Thank you developers, Signal made my life better.

Noam Samuel February 13, 2017

Great and easy to use encryption. One problem -- if you switch phones your old contacts may not get push notifications when you send them messages because you have an unverified key.

Anne Bonney February 1, 2017

Big fan, especially with all the WhatsApp rotten egg news... However, still buggy (dial screen goes black and freezes up) and I'm still pretty sure the FBI or NSA can hack my messages, maybe even phone calls, even while I'm on the current Android update and a paid Kaspersky subscription. .. That doesn't mean it can't help with the pesky local police though....

Lauren Johnson February 11, 2017

So far the app is not very good at actually notifying me of new messages on my ASUS ZenFone. I want this to work but it just hasn't so far.

Chris Vik February 10, 2017

User experience is terrible. Messages not sent, messages sending multiple times, image and link preview terrible. Unless you're paranoid about the government seeing your cat video links just get Telegram.

Ryan Cole February 1, 2017

Highly recommended. The UI isn't quite as nice as other texting apps, but that's a small trade-off for secure messaging, and keeping my data safer in these times of privacy violations and police abuse of power.

Mike Lyon February 7, 2017

The functions seem to work well, but the voice calling is often not very clear and whatsapp seems to be better. Needs a bit of work on that

Mary Rigor February 5, 2017

It stopped putting the number of how many messages. The only way I know I have a message is my notification tune.

Patti Walsh February 8, 2017

Had to stop using this app. Messages would come through in batches hours after they were sent. Sometimes sending messages failed to send at all with no feedback as to why. Calling didn't always work. I love the interface but it was completely unreliable as a way to send and receive text messages.