WhatsApp's new feature allows users to chat without adding contacts to the phonebook: Here's how to do it

tech2 News StaffMay 30, 2018 14:55:29 IST

WhatsApp has brought a new feature that will help you talk to a person on the app without adding his/her number to your contact list. If you know the number of the person you want to talk to,  a chat link can be created which will allow you to directly chat with the person. The feature works on both the phone and web version of WhatsApp.

Whatsapp logo. Image credit. Whatsapp

To create a link to chat with a person without saving the contact, WhatsApp has provided a text link which after filling with proper details can be used to chat with a person without adding his/her contact on the phone. It will involve copying a few links which are in bold below, and frankly is a roundabout way of doing things. But that's what you will have to do if you are not bothered with saving the phone numbers in your contacts list.

The link is, "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=" followed by the number of the user you want to chat with. According to WhatsApp, there should be no zeroes, brackets or dashes included with the number.

An example provided by WhatsApp shows the correct way to insert a number to start a chat.

For example, use "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=15551234567" instead of using "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=+001-(555)1234567", as the latter part contains zero, dash and a bracket along with the number.

Another similar feature allows the users to send pre-composed messages to the numbers which are not saved in the contacts list. The text link provided by the company will help accomplish the task: "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=whatsappphonenumber&text=urlencodedtext", where 'whatsappnumber' will include the user's number and 'urlencodedtext' is the text you want to send to the user.

An example shows how to fill the URL: "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=15551234567&text=I'm%20interested%20in%20your%20car%20for%20sale". In this example the number of the user is 15551234567 and the text to be sent is "I am interested in your car for sale".

Representational Image.

To create a link to just send a pre-composed message, users can use: "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=urlencodedtext". An example to show how its used is "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=I'm%20inquiring%20about%20the%20apartment%20listing". Where the pre-text says "I m inquiring about the apartment".

WhatsApp has provided a guide on how to use the feature for various national and international languages. While inserting an international number into the link users will have to use + sign and the country code after it.

For example, if a number in the US is 123-456, the user will have to use the country code which is 1 and area code which is 408, then the number will be written as +14081234567. There are few special countries which have been listed by WhatsApp which use the feature in a different way.