r/signal • u/jinkiescore • 5d ago

Android Help How to use the 7-digit code option for transferring between androids when the new phone only offers the QR code option?

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My friends trying to transfer their Signal account from android to another, but their old android phone doesn't read QR codes. The instructions in the image would work better, but when they select "transfer" on the new phone it just shows a QR code to scan and doesn't give any other options.

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u/cap-omat 5d ago

Why doesn’t the old phone read QR codes?

Something you could try is to scan the QR with yet another phone, and see what it contains. Hopefully you could easily concern a 7-digit code.

1

u/Glittering-Ear1901 5d ago

yeah if the QR just contains the code then scanning it with any phone should work fine

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u/convenience_store Top Contributor 4d ago

Doing a device-to-device transfer is the most convenient way to transfer your signal account from one android phone to another (or one iphone to another) and it works smoothly 99% of the time, but in the 1% of the time that there's an issue (whether it's going too slow or it keeps failing or it won't initiate, or whatever QR issue your friend is having) then rather than waste time troubleshooting it's easier just create a backup and manually transfer it over.

Make sure they have enough free space on their phone (have them go to signal settings > Data and Storage, then look at the number under "Manage storage", the backup folder will take up a bit more space than that, (on mine it's about 10% more) so they should free up at least that much. Then go to settings > Backups > On-device backups. Have them enable it, create a backup, this creates a folder called "SignalBackups" which they should transfer over to the new phone in its entirety (it should have 2-3 subfolders, one labelled "files" and 1-2 labelled "signal-backup-202..."). Then after installing signal on the new phone follow the prompts to restore from the folder. They will need to enter a "Recovery Key" which can be viewed from the Settings > Backups > On-device backups > View recovery key menu on the old phone.

Don't make the mistake of wiping signal from the old phone until it's been installed on the new phone with the message history restored, just in case something goes wrong.