A full-featured Signal messenger client for Emacs, built on signal-cli's JSON-RPC interface with local SQLite persistence for message history and full-text search.

sgn is a fork of signel by Keenan Salandy.

sgn lets you send and receive Signal messages without leaving Emacs. It communicates with a signal-cli daemon over JSON-RPC, persists all conversations in a local SQLite database with FTS5 indexing, and renders chat buffers in a telega-style layout with message grouping, inline images, and text properties for point-based commands.

The package covers the core Signal messaging workflow: sending and receiving text, images, stickers, and voice notes; reacting to, quoting, editing, and deleting messages; creating and voting in polls; pinning messages; managing groups and contacts; and searching across your entire message history. A dashboard buffer provides an overview of all conversations with unread badges, last-message previews, and pinned chats.

sgn also supports importing your existing message history from Signal Desktop via its SQLCipher database, so you don't lose context when switching to an Emacs-based workflow.

Requirements: Emacs 29.1+ compiled with SQLite support, and signal-cli v0.14+ with a registered Signal account.

(use-package sgn
  :vc (:url "https://github.com/benthamite/sgn"))

(use-package sgn
  :ensure (:host github :repo "benthamite/sgn"))

(use-package sgn
  :straight (:host github :repo "benthamite/sgn"))

No external Emacs package dependencies are required --- sgn uses only built-in libraries.

(use-package sgn
  :vc (:url "https://github.com/benthamite/sgn")
  :config
  (setq sgn-account "+15550000000")) ;; your Signal phone number

Then:

1. M-x sgn-start --- initializes the database, starts signal-cli, and opens the dashboard.
2. M-x sgn-chat --- pick a contact or group to open a chat buffer.
3. Type your message and press RET to send.
4. Move point to any message and press r to react, q to quote-reply, e to edit, or d to delete.

For a comprehensive description of all user options, commands, and functions, see the manual.

sgn is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.