title: How to trigger Whatsapp Desktop by html link in Windows Google Chrome
body: <p>According to <a href="https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/26000030" rel="nofollow noreferrer">official Whatsapp documenttion</a>, if you want to make a clickable html link that triggers a new chat window in Whatsapp, regardless of (1) the destination phone number being in your contacts or not and (2) of OS (works in Web, iOS and Android), all you have to do is create a link like this:</p>
  
  <p><code>&lt;a href="https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=phoneNumberInInternationalFormat" target="_blank"&gt;Click here to open Whatsapp&lt;/a&gt;</code></p>
  
  <p>In Google Chrome / <strong>MacOs</strong>, if I have Whatsapp Desktop installed, as soon as I click that link, I get a new tab (due to target = blank) with an Whatsapp web page containing a button 'Click here to chat', but <strong>Whatsapp Desktop imediatelly intercepts the link and comes to the foreground and creates a new chat with that phone number</strong>. That's the behavior I'm hoping for. </p>
  
  <p>On Google Chrome <strong>Windows</strong>, on the other hand, Whatsapp Desktop doesn't intercept the link, so Whatsapp's web page just sits there waiting for me to click the button. The problem is that every time you click the button, you have to wait for the full Whatsapp WEB (not desktop) to load, which takes forever, specially if use this feature all the time. </p>
  
  <p>I tried using <code>whatsapp://</code> syntax but it doesn't work in Windows (does nothing when clicked), and in MacOs it triggers Whatsapp Desktop but errors out unless you have that contact in your contact list already (api.whatsapp.com doesn't have this limitation).</p>
  
  <p>In short: any way to make a clickable link that, on Chrome/Windows, will trigger Whatsapp Desktop instead of forcing the user to load (every time) whatsapp web?</p>