Show only active conversations in left pane

[joewilliams]

Bug description

It would be nice if it would be possible to limit the list of contacts to only those who you've had a conversation with. The ios app uses an "inbox" to effectively do this, something equivalent would be great on the desktop as well.

[virtuallynathan]

This would be great, and ideally the "archive" as well.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

You can remove conversations from that left pane list by clicking into the conversation and selecting 'Delete Messages' in the top-right menu.

[joewilliams]

@scottnonnenberg-signal this works but I would need to delete ~100 contacts/conversations on each signal desktop installation. Note that even if I have never actually conversed with a contact they are in the list and I would need to delete the "conversation" to remove them from the list.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

Thanks for your perspective. The behavior on initial setup likely won't change anytime soon, but at least you have a workaround!

[mortss]

I also desire the behavior described, as all chat clients I have previously used will only show active conversations. Having my entire contact list showing up all the time is

1. a privacy concern, as someone looking over my shoulder can see the names of people (being able to set Signal-exclusive nicknames would also be desired)
2. a social concern, as I'm always concerned I'm going to click accidentally on someone I'm not wanting to talk with--just because they're in my address book doesn't mean they want to be "butt-dialed"
3. a user experience concern, if the alphabetical ordering is preserved rather than having "most recent" at the top (I do not currently have enough conversations to test this).

The "workaround" is not desirable, as I would need to go into every single contact and delete the conversation.

An alternative would be to have "pop-outable" chat windows and a dedicated window for the address book/active conversations list, which could be minimized/hidden.

[joewilliams]

a social concern, as I'm always concerned I'm going to click accidentally on someone I'm not wanting to talk with--just because they're in my address book doesn't mean they want to be "butt-dialed"

This is a big concern for me too 💯