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Last updated: July 25th, 2017 at 14:21 UTC+02:00
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With the new Galaxy J (2017) handsets, Samsung is removing Secure Folder from the equation and offering a direct way to use separate accounts on social networking apps. The Galaxy J (2017) devices come with a feature called Dual Messenger, and it does exactly what the name suggests. Dual Messenger works by installing a separate copy of the app on the device; you see two shortcuts for the same app in the app drawer, so you can fire up each instance of the app, log in to different accounts, and, well, use them just like you would use two different apps.
Dual Messenger supports apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Snapchat; I only had the aforementioned apps installed on my phone, so you might see more apps with Dual Messenger support on your device depending on the ones you have installed. Naturally, apps that officially support using more than one account don't show up in Dual Messenger, such as Instagram.
If you have one of the Galaxy J7 (2017) smartphones (including the India-exclusive Galaxy J7 Max), you can find Dual Messenger in the Settings » Advanced features menu, where enabling the feature for each app can be done with a single app. Once enabled, you will see two icons for the app in the app drawer, with a small icon of a linked chain indicating which of the two is the second app. Since the phone treats the two instances as individual apps, you can even use them at the same time in Multi Window mode.
It's unclear how Dual Messenger works, and if it's simply an extension of Secure Folder, it would be great to see Samsung bringing support for a few regular apps in addition to social networking apps. Hopefully, Dual Messenger will show up on other Galaxy devices as well, although it's possible Samsung will keep it exclusive to its budget smartphones.
Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.
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