Signal Gets Easier Way to Transfer Chats to New Phone

Finding a fresh, updated, and secure messaging app is a process I just went through with my family, who all still use Google Hangouts. Since Hangouts is about to die and be replaced with Chat, an app I’ve tried several times and never took a liking to, we ended up settling on Telegram. Telegram is fantastic! We also considered switching to Signal because of its level of security, but there was a single item holding me back from doing that.

Today, Signal is pushing out a feature in beta that might have gotten me to stick with it. According to the app’s changelog, Signal has added a way to “quickly and securely transfer your Signal information to a brand-new Android phone.” That’s big!

As someone who constantly changes phones and also has to help family members when they do the same every year or so, not being able to easily move your Signal account to a new device sounded like too much of a pain. With this new feature, Signal is using your old and new phone to securely (end-to-end encryption) move everything over, as long as they are close to each other. It does this using a private local WiFi connection between the two.

Users of Signal, sell me on it. Did I make a mistake in going with Telegram?

Google Play Link: Signal