Signal’s new Stories feature is now available on the beta channel

Privacy-focused messaging app Signal is receiving a new update on the beta channel, which brings the Stories feature that we spotted in an APK teardown earlier this year. As expected, the feature lets you share images, videos, and texts with your friends that automatically disappear after 24 hours.

Although we got our first look at Signal’s Stories feature shortly after we published our findings, the company has now officially announced its rollout in a post on its community forums. As per the post, the feature is rolling out with Signal version 5.52 beta for Android and version 5.57 beta for iOS. The feature appears as a new tab in the bottom bar, and you can tap on it to view a list of Stories shared by your friends.

To create and share your own story, you can either tap on the My Stories button at the top of the page or the camera icon in the bottom left. This opens up a viewfinder to help you quickly capture an image and share it with your friends. You also get the option to pick a photo from your phone’s gallery to share as a story.

After you click/select an image to share, you’ll get the option to add a message to your story, add annotations to the image, crop the image, or save it to your device’s storage. You can also share videos to your Stories in a similar fashion.

In addition to images and videos, the feature lets you share text Stories with your friends. To create a text story, simply select the Text option in the bottom bar on the new story page, tap on the screen to enter text, and tap on the circle in the bottom left corner to change the background color. You can also add links to your text Stories by selecting the button next to the background color option. Once you’re done, you can share your story by tapping on the arrow in the bottom right corner.

Since Stories on Signal is currently only available on the beta channel, you’ll have to enroll in the app’s beta program to try the feature. You can follow this link to enroll in the beta program on Google Play.

---

Source: Signal Community