Signel

Signel is an Emacs interface for Signal. It communicates with a running signal-cli daemon via JSON-RPC to send and receive messages.

Features

• Chat Buffers: Read-only history with a guarded input prompt.
• Media Support: Renders inline images and attachments.
• Animated Stickers: Automatically converts APNG and WebP stickers to GIF for playback in Emacs.
• Dashboard: Overview of active conversations.
• Notifications: Native desktop notifications on new messages.

Dependencies

1. Emacs 27.1+
2. signal-cli: Must be installed and available in your $PATH.
3. ImageMagick (Optional): The convert command is required to render animated stickers.

Setup

Before running Signel, you must link or register your account using the command line.

Example (Linking a new device)

signal-cli link -n "emacs-client" | xargs -n 1 qrencode -t utf8

Installation

signel is available on MELPA.

You can install signel with the following command.

M-x package-install RET signel RET

For a basic configuration, place this in your user-init-file

(setq signel-account "+15550000000")

use-package

(use-package signel
  :config
  ;; REQUIRED: Your registered phone number
  (setq signel-account "+15550000000")

  ;; Optional: If signal-cli is not in your $PATH
  ;; (setq signel-cli-program "/usr/local/bin/signal-cli")
)

Usage

• Start the background process: M-x signel-start
• Open the conversation list: M-x signel-dashboard
• Open a specific chat directly: M-x signel-chat

Keybindings

In Chat Buffers

Key	Command	Action
RET	signel-send-input	Send message
C-c C-c	signel-send-input	Send message
C-c C-a	signel-attach-file	Attach file

In Dashboard

Key	Command	Action
RET	signel-dashboard-open-entry	Open selected chat
n	forward-button	Next chat
p	backward-button	Previous chat
g	signel-dashboard-refresh	Refresh list