The update that solves Signal’s biggest problem has been released!

Popular messaging app Signal has released the functionality to change the registered phone number ‘without losing chats’. The company, which brought the founder of WhatsApp, Brian Acton, to the CEO seat, which was vacated by the resignation of Moxie Marlinspike last month, was receiving harsh criticism from users due to the lack of the said feature.

Signal is protected by end-to-end encryption technology and matches users’ chats to phone numbers. But conversations are not synced in the cloud. For this reason, when the phone number was changed, the existing messages matched the old number and were deleted when switching to the new number.

Signal launched the change number feature

The messaging platform announced yesterday that users can now update their phone numbers without having to create a new account and lose conversations. In this context, Signal added the ‘Change Number’ feature to the application and published a short guide on how to work.

Signal can now change numbers without deleting conversations.

To change the phone number registered in your Signal account, you must have access to both the old and the new number. It is also mandatory to have the latest version of Signal, v5.30.6 and higher for Android or v5.27.1 and higher for iOS, installed on your phone. If you meet all the requirements, you can change your number by following the steps below:

• Open Signal and go to Settings > Account > Change Phone Number.
• If you see a warning saying that you cannot undo the change, press the ‘Continue’ button to proceed.
• Enter your old and new number in the required fields when prompted.
• Then confirm the new number with the verification code. Finally, finish the process by clicking on the ‘Change Number’ option.

After the change is complete, Signal will notify your contacts that you have switched to the new number. You can use your new account without deleting the conversations you had with the previous number. If you do not have access to your old number, you cannot perform this action. You will have to start from scratch.