User experience of signing up: issues to think about

Mutual Help
1

I installed deltachat on my Ubuntu 20.04 desktop using the appimage (because there’s no snap and the deb won’t get updates) and it worked excellently; I could chat to a friend, it worked well with my (gmail) mail account, everything was great. I am very impressed; this is exactly how a secure messenger should work, piggybacking on a thing I’m already happy with (my email account) but giving me secure chat. Well done everyone involved; this is great.

However, I would like to be able to also read and reply to messages on my Android phone. This… is harder. After a bunch of reading, I have discovered that I have to send a “setup message”, which is available in the desktop app settings but is terribly hidden. I have sent that message, and it’s in my gmail account. I have also installed the delta chat app on Android. I do not know how to get the setup message into the delta chat app.

If I open the delta.chat app, I am presented with “log in to your server”, “scan qr code”, and “import backup”, none of which are “load this setup message from my gmail account”.

If I open the setup message in the gmail app and tap on the attachment, I’m offered the chance to open this message in many apps, none of which are the deltachat app.

I honestly don’t know how to proceed at this point, and I’m pretty technically literate. How someone less technically literate than me might proceed at this point is even more of a mystery.

2

Welcome, sil!

Have you tried to setup the app with your gmail login details?

3

I have, now, exported a backup fro the desktop and imported it on my phone, as FAQ - Delta Chat suggests, and that works. I didn’t use an autocrypt setup message, as far as I can tell, and I don’t understand what that’s useful for at all. So this all feels confusing still, but it’s mostly working as far as I can tell!

4

To use Autocrypt Setup Message, you need to log into your gmail account on the phone first, like you did on desktop during the first setup. After that, send Autocrypt Setup Message from desktop and it will appear on the phone. You can then click on it on the phone. You can try it now with both devices set up, but it will do nothing at this point.

Overall, backup is the recommended way and there are ideas to improve it further, like making backups encrypted and transferring them over the LAN via encrypted connection established using a QR code.

Autocrypt Setup Message is an advanced feature mainly intended to synchronize your key to other programs that implement the same standard, like K-9 Mail.

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