WhatsApp is about to make asking someone for their phone number obsolete.
Well, kind of. More than 2.5 billion people worldwide regularly use the app to text, call people or make hours-long voice notes.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook that owns WhatsApp, has announced the app will move away from phone numbers to usernames.
Adding someone on WhatsApp will soon be like following someone on X or Instagram.
So you don’t have to give someone your personal phone number for them to be able to message you, which adds a new layer of privacy.
If someone adds you to a group chat, for example, everyone in that conversation won’t have access to your phone number – only your username.
Meta didn’t give an exact date of when username support will become a reality, but the first step is being able to add new contacts across all devices.
Ever since WhatsApp first became available in 2009, how users can add contacts has been very limited.
As Meta said in a blog post this week: ‘With contacts, you know which of your friends and family are on WhatsApp, you can easily message or call them and it helps give you context on who is in your groups.
‘But losing your phone could mean losing your contact list as well.
‘Traditionally, WhatsApp has lacked the ability to store your contact list in a way that can be easily and automatically restored in the event you lose it.
‘What’s more, the only place you were able to add contacts was from your mobile device, by either typing in a phone number or scanning a QR code.’
But soon users will have the option to do this on WhatsApp Web and Windows and ‘eventually’, as the app said, on other linked devices.
In other words, if you add someone to WhatsApp on your computer, it’ll be automatically synced with their phone. The future is today (well, not today, as this update will roll out in a few days for Appl and Android users).
This is good news for anyone who has lost their phone – or had it stolen – as contacts can be easily restored.
The shakeup will also see people be able to add contacts exclusively to WhatsApp. At the moment, the app relies on your address book stored and managed by the phone’s operating system.
‘These WhatsApp contacts are ideal for when you are sharing your phone with others or if you want to separate personal and business contacts when managing more than one WhatsApp account on your phone,’ the firm said.
WhatsApp has made a fair few updates recently. Group video calls, image searches and draft messages, among many others.
Not all have gone down well, however. Parts of the app became as green as its logo in June to improve the user experience which was apparently enough for one user to ‘delete the app’ completely.
Here’s hoping the username update doesn’t get the same reaction.
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