I’ll trace where Signal Desktop sets the Electron BrowserWindow title, identify the active conversation state, then make the smallest patch so it becomes Name - Signal with a safe fallback to Signal.

Done. I made a minimal patch that changes Signal Desktop’s title behavior to:

Person’s Name - Signal

with fallback to the existing title when no chat is selected. It also preserves the existing unread-count behavior, so you’ll get titles like:

Alice - Signal (3)

I changed two files:

ts/windows/main/phase1-ipc.preload.ts
Adds dynamic title generation based on the selected conversation.

ts/state/initializeRedux.preload.ts
Subscribes to Redux title-relevant changes so the window title updates when you switch conversations or a conversation title changes.

Patch file: signal-window-title.patch

I also verified the patch applies cleanly with:

Bash
patch -p1 --dry-run < signal-window-title.patch

I did not run the full Signal lint/typecheck suite because the ZIP did not include node_modules, so the dependency garden is still unwatered.

Got it, the unread count should attach to the person/conversation name, not trail after “Signal”. I’ll adjust the patch so the title formats as Alice (3) - Signal, while keeping the fallback as Signal (3) when no conversation is selected.

Yes, that makes sense: the unread count is global-ish window state, so it belongs before the conversation name. I’ll revise the patch to target (3) Alice - Signal, with sensible fallbacks like (3) Signal when no conversation is selected.

Fixed. The patch now formats unread titles as:

(3) Alice - Signal

and falls back to:

(3) Signal

when no conversation is selected.

Updated patch: signal-window-title.patch

I also re-ran:

Bash
patch -p1 --dry-run < signal-window-title.patch

and it applies cleanly.

I’ll paste the diff directly here. I’m going to read the patch file from the workspace first so I don’t accidentally reconstruct it from memory.

Sure — here’s the patch inline:

Diff
--- a/ts/ConversationController.preload.ts
+++ b/ts/ConversationController.preload.ts
@@ -424,12 +424,12 @@
         unreadStats.unreadCount + unreadStats.readChatsMarkedUnreadCount;
       window.IPC.setBadge(total);
       window.IPC.updateTrayIcon(total);
-      window.document.title = `${window.getTitle()} (${total})`;
+      window.document.title = `(${total}) ${window.getTitle()}`;
     } else if (unreadStats.readChatsMarkedUnreadCount > 0) {
       const total = unreadStats.readChatsMarkedUnreadCount;
       window.IPC.setBadge(total);
       window.IPC.updateTrayIcon(total);
-      window.document.title = `${window.getTitle()} (${total})`;
+      window.document.title = `(${total}) ${window.getTitle()}`;
     } else {
       window.IPC.setBadge(0);
       window.IPC.updateTrayIcon(0);
--- a/ts/state/initializeRedux.preload.ts
+++ b/ts/state/initializeRedux.preload.ts
@@ -47,6 +47,20 @@
   const store = createStore(initialState);
   window.reduxStore = store;
 
+  let lastWindowTitle: string | undefined;
+  const updateWindowTitle = () => {
+    const nextWindowTitle = window.getTitle();
+    if (nextWindowTitle === lastWindowTitle) {
+      return;
+    }
+
+    lastWindowTitle = nextWindowTitle;
+    window.ConversationController.updateUnreadCount();
+  };
+
+  updateWindowTitle();
+  store.subscribe(updateWindowTitle);
+
   // Binding these actions to our redux store and exposing them allows us to update
   //   redux when things change in the rest of the app.
   window.reduxActions = {
--- a/ts/windows/main/phase1-ipc.preload.ts
+++ b/ts/windows/main/phase1-ipc.preload.ts
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 import { parseIntWithFallback } from '../../util/parseIntWithFallback.std.ts';
 import { getSignalConnections } from '../../util/getSignalConnections.preload.ts';
 import { ThemeType } from '../../types/Util.std.ts';
+import { NavTab } from '../../types/Nav.std.ts';
 import { Environment } from '../../environment.std.ts';
 import { SignalContext } from '../context.preload.ts';
 import { createLogger } from '../../logging/log.std.ts';
@@ -60,7 +61,27 @@
 };
 window.ConversationController = new ConversationController();
 window.platform = process.platform;
-window.getTitle = () => title;
+window.getTitle = () => {
+  const selectedLocation = window.reduxStore?.getState().nav.selectedLocation;
+  if (selectedLocation?.tab !== NavTab.Chats) {
+    return title;
+  }
+
+  const selectedConversationId = selectedLocation.details.conversationId;
+  if (!selectedConversationId) {
+    return title;
+  }
+
+  const conversationTitle = window.reduxStore
+    .getState()
+    .conversations.conversationLookup[selectedConversationId]?.title?.trim();
+
+  if (!conversationTitle) {
+    return title;
+  }
+
+  return `${conversationTitle} - ${title}`;
+};
 window.getAppInstance = () => config.appInstance;
 window.getVersion = () => config.version;
 window.getBuildCreation = () => parseIntWithFallback(config.buildCreation, 0);