Many of us are not used to chatting on mobile for very long durations, maybe because of small screens or small keyboards or maybe simply because we like using our PC or laptop more than our phone. We have good news for all such people. One of the most popular instant messaging service, WhatsApp, has extended its support to the desktop PC browsers. This means, that you can now use WhatsApp on your PC as well.
Open WhatsApp app on your mobile device and tap “Menu” button (represented by 3 vertical dots).
From the drop down menu, select “WhatsApp Web” and meanwhile visit web.whatsapp.com from your PC web browser.
Scan the QR code shown on web.whatsapp.com using rear camera of your mobile device.
You will get the WhatsApp user interface on your browser. Choose any person you want to chat with from the list shown on left hand side. This list contains people from “Current Chats” on your device.
Click on the person you have chosen and start a chat by typing the message you want to send in the box given below.
If you want to start a new chat with a person with whom you have not chatted in a while or a person who is not in the list, but is in your phone contact lists and has an account on WhatsApp, Click on the “New message” button.
A new list containing all your phone contacts who have an account on WhatsApp will show up on the left. Select the person you want to chat with and start a conversation with them.
His/her contact info, with a bigger profile picture will show up on right hand side.
You can use all the emoticons while you chat by clicking on the emoticon button.
All the available emoticons will pop up and you can choose any one you desire.
Option 1 for sending any image stored on your computer.
Option 2 for sending any image using your web camera. Remember, camera permissions are required.
Unfortunately you can only attach images (and not audio or video) for now on this web version of WhatsApp.
To send any voice note , click on the microphone icon present in bottom right of the window and record your voice. Remember you will need to give microphone permissions to your browser in order to use your microphone.
Log out from the system by clicking on the 3 vertical dots menu button and then choosing “Log out” when you are done.
Alternatively you can Log out from your mobile device too by tapping “Log out from all computers”.
Make sure your mobile device is connected to internet preferably through Wi-Fi at all times while you use web.whatsapp.com else website will give you a warning that your mobile is not connected to internet and you won’t be able to use it further.
You can’t attach videos, contacts, location, audios as you can do in mobile version.
You can’t use your broadcast lists.
You can’t change your chat wallpaper.
Not all desktop web browsers are supported.
Also, if you try to log from multiple PCs, it won’t allow you. It will give you a warning. If you choose “USE HERE” it will disconnect you from your previous window.
Hope you enjoyed these instructions and save a lot of thumb pain. Please comment and share if you liked the article.
We also recommend you read our article “taking backup of your WhatsApp data“.