How to chat with WhatsApp users without saving their phone number

WhatsApp is the most widely used instant messaging app used by almost every smartphone user. The app lets you send instant messages, photos and videos to your contacts, and also lets you make audio and video calls. To initiate a WhatsApp conversation, it is important to have the recipient saved in your contact list.

Now, Facebook-owned WhatsApp recently introduced a feature called ‘Click to Chat’ which allows sending messages to numbers that are not saved in your contact list. As long as you know the recipient’s phone number, you can initiate a conversation. Also, the recipient should have a WhatsApp account, else, you won’t be able to chat with them. Here’s how to go about it.

How to use WhatsApp’s Click to Chat feature

Step One

You’ll need to create a chat link using WhatsApp API – api.whatsapp.com/send?phone= 

Step Two

Just where the above URL ends, you have to add the recipient’s phone number along with the country code. For instance, India’s country code is +91, and the recipient’s phone number is 98200098200 then the URL will be api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=919820098200.

Step Three

Enter this URL on your smartphone’s Chrome or any other browser, after which it will prompt you to open WhatsApp and initiate the conversation.

You can even type this in your web browser on desktop or laptop, after which it will ask you to connect using WhatsApp web and initiate the chat.

You can also create a pre-filled message for which the URL will look like this api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=9820098200&text=Hi There

As of now, it is unclear as to how useful the feature will be to the users, but it can surely help businesses communicate with their customers.