WhatsApp is simple, secure, reliable for messaging and calling, available on phones and devices all over the world.
WhatsApp lets you enjoy the latest additions to the messaging service before they hit the final release on the Google Play Store. The latest Beta adds the long awaited Dark Theme feature. More instructions on how to enable it are in the description below.
WhatsApp is available for Android, iPhone / iOS and Windows & Mac. WhatsApp is a cross-platform messaging service, so those devices can all message each other. Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends.
In addition to basic messaging WhatsApp users can create groups, send each other unlimited images, video and audio media messages.
Is WhatsApp available for Windows?
Yes, WhatsApp has a desktop version for Windows and Mac, so you can use it on your desktop PC or laptop to message with friends and share photos as well. It is also available for iPhone / iOS.
Is WhatsApp free?
Although there was a time WhatsApp had an annual fee of $0.99. That business model was dropped in 2016 and since then WhatsApp has been completely free to download and use.
Can WhatsApp read my messages?
Theoretically, no. WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption on both private and group conversations, which means messages are encrypted on your phone as they are sent and only the recipient you sent them to has the key to decrypt them. All of this happens in the backend automatically without the need for users to adjust settings or select any special options.
Features
- No hidden costs: Once you and your friends download the application, you can use it to chat as much as you want. Send a million messages a day to your friends for free! WhatsApp uses your Internet connection: Edge/3G/4G or Wi-Fi when available.
- Multimedia: Send Video, Images, and Voice notes to your friends and contacts.
- Group Chat: Enjoy group conversations with your contacts. Add or Remove group participants, change group subject and set a group icon.
- Personal: Set a profile photo which will be shown to all your contacts
- No international charges: Just like there is no added cost to send an international email, there is no cost to send WhatsApp messages internationally. Chat with your friends all over the world as long as they have WhatsApp Messenger installed and avoid those pesky international SMS costs.
- Say no to pins and usernames: Why even bother having to remember yet another PIN or username? WhatsApp works with your phone number, just like SMS would, and integrates flawlessly with your existing phone address book.
- No need to log in/out: No more confusion about getting logged off from another computer or device. With push notifications WhatsApp is always on and always connected.
- No need to add buddies: Your Address Book is used to automatically connect you with your contacts. Your contacts who already have WhatsApp Messenger will be automatically displayed under Favorites, similar to a buddy list.
- Offline Messages: Even if you miss your push notifications or turn off your iPhone, WhatsApp will save your messages offline until you retrieve them during the next application use.
- And much more: Share location and places, Exchange contacts, Custom wallpaper, Custom notification sounds, Landscape mode, Message timestamps, Email chat history, Broadcast messages and media to many contacts at once, and much much more.
What's New
Express Yourself with More Stickers
People love using stickers to express themselves and add personality and fun to their chats. Sometimes a sticker can communicate emotions and moods better than words ever could and today, we're adding new ways for you to personalize and enjoy stickers.
People love using stickers to express themselves and add personality and fun to their chats. Sometimes a sticker can communicate emotions and moods better than words ever could and today, we're adding new ways for you to personalize and enjoy stickers.
New and searchable GIPHY stickers: We've partnered with GIPHY to bring their extensive collection of stickers directly to WhatsApp. This integration lets you find and share relevant and engaging stickers, without having to leave the app. To access these stickers, simply tap the sticker icon and search using text or emoji.
Custom Sticker Maker is now available on Android so you can easily create, edit and share your own stickers. iOS users have been loving this feature and we're excited to expand it to everyone. Turn your photos into personalized stickers, or customize existing ones using editing tools like crop, text, and draw. Once created, the stickers are automatically saved in the sticker tray for easy access so you can share with family and friends.
AI Stickers: If you can't find the perfect sticker for the moment, don't forget that you can also use Meta AI to create more custom stickers. At this time, AI sticker creation is available on iPhone and Android in the U.S. Android users can also test creating AI stickers in Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia.
Sticker Organization: You'll now be able to easily discover new sticker packs from WhatsApp by previewing them in the sticker tray below your downloaded ones. To organize your sticker tray, you can also tap and hold a sticker to move to top or delete it.
Meta AI on WhatsApp - Now Multilingual, More Creative and Smarter
As Meta AI continues to improve with new useful features and languages, we're excited to bring this helpful and creative assistant to more countries starting today.
Continued International Expansion
Meta AI can help you with answers, ideas and inspiration. It's now available in 22 countries, with the newest additions rolling out now including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Cameroon in several new languages including French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish with more to come.
Imagine Edit
We are also making it easier to create your ideal image with Meta AI by making it possible to easily change and edit an image, including adding or removing objects within it. To start, type "imagine" to describe your image and then respond to what Meta AI provides by asking it to add, subtract, or animate the image to your liking. Imagine Edit is available in English at first, with more languages coming soon.
Imagine Yourself
If you've ever wondered what you might look like as a superhero, or wanted to try out different hair or outfits - you can now imagine yourself doing just about anything. Simply type "Imagine me" in chats with Meta AI to get started. After a quick set up, you'll be able to add a prompt like "Imagine me in a retro pink and green ski outfit" and Meta AI will generate an image of you in that personalized scene. You can reset or delete your setup photos at any time. This is available in beta in the U.S. for now, with more languages and countries coming soon.
We are excited to continue to share new capabilities and advancements from Meta AI with more and more people on WhatsApp. As always, your personal messages and calls remain end-to-end encrypted, meaning not even WhatsApp or Meta can see or listen to them. The team is working on improving responses to Meta AI rapidly and introduces improvements every two weeks. We would love to hear from you, and see how Meta AI has helped you be more creative and expressive. Tag us on Threads and share what you've imagined.
Choose your favorites on WhatsApp
Focusing on your favorites just got a lot easier on WhatsApp. Starting today, you can quickly find the people and groups that matter most at the top of your calls tab and as a filter for your chats.
Whether it's your family group chat or your best friend, your 'favorites' will be the same across your chats and calls, so you can speed dial them from your calls tab too.
To add to your 'favorites':
- From your chats screen, select the 'favorites' filter, and select your contacts or groups there.
- From the calls tab, tap 'Add favorite' and select your contacts or groups.
- Or, simply manage your 'favorites' in your settings by going to Settings > Favorites > Add to Favorites, and you can reorder them at any time.
We're rolling out to users today, and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.
Better calling across desktop and mobile
Since we brought Calling to WhatsApp back in 2015, we've continued to improve it with the introduction of group calls, video calls, and multi-platform support.
Today we have several updates that will make calls across your devices even bigger and better, rolling out over the next few weeks:
- Screen sharing with audio: Ideal for watching videos together, now when you share your screen, you can share your audio too
- More participants: Now you can have up to 32 people on a video call across all your devices
- Speaker spotlight: Easily see who's talking with the speaker automatically highlighted and appearing first on screen
We also remain relentlessly focused on audio and video quality, for clearer calls no matter where you are. We recently launched MLow codec which improves call reliability. Calls made on mobile devices benefit from improved noise and echo cancellation, making it easier to have calls in noisy environments, and video calls have higher resolution for those with faster connections. Audio is crisper overall, even if you have poor network connectivity or are using an older device. You can read more about the MLow codec and listen to the difference in audio quality here.
We'll continue making improvements to calling on WhatsApp so you can make the best quality, private calls wherever you are in the world.
Previous Release Notes:
- Moments happen fast, share them faster with video notes.
Voice messages just got more private
We introduced View Once for photos and videos back in 2021 to add another layer of privacy to your messages. Today, we're excited to announce you can now send a voice message that will disappear once listened to.
For reading out your credit card details to a friend, or when you're planning a surprise, you can now also share sensitive information over voice message with added peace of mind. For consistency with View Once photos and videos, View Once voice messages are clearly marked with the "one-time" icon and can only be played one time.
As with all your personal messages, WhatsApp protects your voice messages with end-to-end encryption by default, and View Once is just another example of our continued privacy innovation.
View Once voice messages are rolling out globally over the coming days, and we look forward to your feedback. See more information on how they work here.
Multiple Accounts Coming to WhatsApp
What's better than having a WhatsApp account? Well, of course it's having two.
Today, we're introducing the ability to have two WhatsApp accounts on Android logged in at the same time. Helpful for switching between accounts – such as your work and personal – now you no longer need to log out each time, carry two phones or worry about messaging from the wrong place.
To set up a second account, you will need a second phone number and SIM card, or a phone that accepts multi-SIM or eSIM. Simply open your WhatsApp settings, click on the arrow next to your name, and click "Add account". You can control your privacy and notification settings on each account.
As a reminder, only use the official WhatsApp and don't download imitations or fake versions as a way of getting more accounts on your phone. Your messages are only secure and private when using the official WhatsApp.
How to lock chats in WhatsApp
On Android and iPhone, you can turn on the chat lock feature to password protect your most personal chats. In order to read or send messages, you'll need to unlock your chats using device authentication, such as your phone passcode, Face ID or fingerprint. These chats will be kept separate from your other chats in a Locked chats folder.
- When chats are locked, the notification content and contact are hidden. The notification will show as WhatsApp: 1 new message.
- To help keep media private, you'll have to turn chat lock off to save media to your phone's gallery.
- Group chats and muted chats can also be locked.
- Calls won't be locked. A call from a locked chat contact or group will still appear.
- When you turn on chat lock from your phone, it will lock chats on that phone only. If you have other devices linked to WhatsApp, such as a desktop computer, the chats on those linked devices won't be locked.
- If you use the backup and restore feature on WhatsApp, your locked chats will still be locked once you restore to a new phone. To access your locked chats you will need to have device authentication (fingerprint or Face ID) set up first.
- When you turn on chat lock, the person you're chatting with won't know you've locked the chat.
- If you want to lock an archived chat, you'll need to unarchive it first, then lock it.
Turn on chat lock
You can turn chat lock off or on within the chat's info for each chat you want to lock. If you don't have your device authentication set up yet, such as your phone passcode, fingerprint or Face ID, you'll be prompted to set it up before locking a chat.
How to turn on chat lock:
- Tap chat info > Chat lock.
- Tap Lock this chat with fingerprint or Lock This Chat with Face ID.
- Tap View to see the chat in the Locked chats folder.
View your locked chats
You can view your locked chats in the Locked chats folder.
How to view your locked chats:
- Go to the Chats tab and swipe down.
- Tap the Locked chats folder.
- Confirm your Face ID or touch the fingerprint sensor to unlock.
- Tap the chat to view or send a message.
Turn off chat lock
You can turn off chat lock in the chat's info.
How to turn off chat lock:
- Tap chat info > Chat lock.
- Toggle off and confirm your fingerprint or Face ID.
How to edit messages in WhatsApp
You can edit any message up to 15 minutes after sending, and it'll update for everyone in the chat. Edited messages will have the word "edited" next to the timestamp.
If you aren't on the latest version of WhatsApp you'll see, "This message was edited for everyone in this chat on the latest version of WhatsApp." Update your app to see edited messages.
- Select a message
- Then click Menu (three dots) > Edit message.
- Edit your message.
- Click the checkmark when you're finished with your update.
Note:
- There is a 15 minute time limit for editing messages.
- Editing a message won't send a new chat notification to people in your chat.
- You can't edit photos, videos, or other types of media.
You can edit any message up to 15 minutes after sending, and it'll update for everyone in the chat. Edited messages will have the word "edited" next to the timestamp.
If you aren't on the latest version of WhatsApp you'll see, "This message was edited for everyone in this chat on the latest version of WhatsApp." Update your app to see edited messages.
- Select a message
- Then click Menu (three dots) > Edit message.
- Edit your message.
- Click the checkmark when you're finished with your update.
Note:
- There is a 15 minute time limit for editing messages.
- Editing a message won't send a new chat notification to people in your chat.
- You can't edit photos, videos, or other types of media.
