Samsung has brought its Dual Messenger feature, which clones messaging applications—like Snapchat and WhatsApp—in a sandboxed environment, allowing users to sign into more than one account, to the Galaxy Note 8, following its debut on the Galaxy A (2017) and Galaxy J (2017) series earlier this year.
As we mentioned in our initial coverage, applications that natively support more than one account—Instagram and Twitter, for example—won't show up in the Dual Messenger configuration panel, but just about every platform that doesn't will. We tried it with WhatsApp, and it works surprisingly well.
Once you've set up the feature by opening up Settings, selecting Advanced Features, tapping Dual Messenger and running through the set-up process, you'll notice two versions of the application on your home screen: the regular one and the cloned version, indicated by a small chain icon in the bottom-right corner.
Switching between them is seamless and because they're technically different applications, they can be used at the same time in Multi Window. Don't expect them to slouch when they're running simultaneously, either. Messages are delivered in real-time, as are read receipts and notifications.
Unfortunately, Dual Messenger is still yet to make its way to the Galaxy S8, but that doesn't mean owners can't replicate the feature. The handset's Secure Folder can also create a sandboxed environment, in which applications can be cloned; however, they'll need to authenticate themselves whenever they want to access them.
Dual Messenger essentially eliminates the need to open up Secure Folder and provide a password whenever you want to use another account.
