Send WhatsApp message without saving receiver’s phone number

For most part of it, WhatsApp may have been able to replace SMS on your phone. It’s lightweight, instant and free, hence taking a significant advantage over conventional SMS. And with over a billion users a day, the app is likely used by everyone in your social circle.

But there’s one small feature that WhatsApp lacks, which has been one of the core features of conventional SMS, that is, sending messages to someone who’s not on your contact list. If you wish to send a WhatsApp message to someone, they should be already present in your contacts. If not present, you have to create the contact first before you can send them a WhatsApp message.

Now, that’s fine, if the particular person is a regular contact. But sometimes, you might just want to send a message to a person for one-time purpose, and may not prefer to add their contact due to the temporary nature of the communication.

Moreover, you might prefer to just chat with a person without giving away your personal details (Profile Picture, Status, etc.). And a specific privacy setting in the app, allows you to hide such information from people who are not on your contacts list.

But unfortunately, WhatsApp does not allow you to send messages without saving the phone number. In this article, we’ll explore a few workarounds and solutions to send WhatsApp messages to a phone number without adding it to your contacts.

WhatsApp Direct (iOS, Android, Windows Phone)

WhatsApp Direct is a simple web app that allows you to send WhatsApp messages, directly to a phone number, without having to create a contact first. WhatsApp Direct is a multi-platform app that works on the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone devices.

The web app interface is quite simple and self explanatory. The following steps will guide you to send a WhatsApp message via WhatsApp Direct:

1. Open WhatsApp Direct on your iPhone, Android or Windows Phone device.
2. Select the receiver’s country code.
3. Next, enter the receiver’s phone number (without the country code), and the message (optional) that you want to send, in the respective spaces provided.
4. Hit the Send button.

The app will now redirect you to WhatsApp (Click OK if it asks for your permission), with a new chat open corresponding to the entered phone number, and the entered message ready to be sent. To send the message to the phone number, just tap on the Send button on the chat screen.

If you do not have WhatsApp installed, it will prompt you to install it from the App Store or Google Play.

Note: Ensure that the phone number that you’re entering is already registered to WhatsApp, otherwise the message won’t reach the receiver, even though it is sent successfully to WhatsApp servers.

Install WhatsApp Direct

On iPhone and Android, you can install WhatsApp Direct to the Home Screen by using the Add to Home Screen option. This way, you can launch WhatsApp Direct just like any other app on your device. To add WhatsApp Direct as a web app on iPhone or Android, do the following:

On iPhone

1. Launch WhatsApp Direct using Mobile Safari.
2. Tap on the Share icon at the bottom of the screen.
3. From the Share Menu, select Add to Home Screen and then tap on Add in the top right corner.

On Android

1. Launch WhatsApp Direct using Chrome browser.
2. Tap on the Menu button (hamburger icon) from the top right corner of the screen.
3. Scroll down and tap on Add to Home Screen and then tap on Add in the pop up.

WhatsApp will now behave as an independent app that can be launched directly from the Home Screen of your iPhone or Android smartphone.

How To Send a message to yourself on WhatsApp

Send a message to yourself on WhatsApp

Sometimes, you might want to use a chat conversation for personal use, for example, taking notes, bookmarking Internet URLs, saving attachments, maintaining to-do lists, etc. And what better way to do this than to create a chat thread for yourself. WhatsApp stores messages and attachments on the user’s device, rather than the server. Moreover, it recently started supporting all types of attachments, hence making it an ideal app for the above purpose.

But how do you send a message to yourself on WhatsApp? Previously, it was possible to create a WhatsApp chat by picking your own contact from the Favorites tab/Contacts tab. But WhatsApp has since replaced the Favorites tab/Contacts tab with the Status tab, and it is no longer possible to send a message to yourself, unless you have another phone number, also registered on WhatsApp.

In this article, we’re going to explore a workaround that allows you to create a WhatsApp conversation thread with your own number.

If you follow our blog, you might already be aware of our web app called WhatsApp Direct, which allows you to send WhatsApp messages to any phone number without saving it to your contacts. And the same app may in fact be used to send a WhatsApp message to your own number.

The below steps will guide you to send a WhatsApp message to your own number, and create a personal chat thread that you can use for bookmarking or reference purposes.

1. Open WhatsApp Direct on your smartphone.
2. Select the appropriate country code from the dropdown. Your selected code will be remembered by the app for future usage.
3. Enter your registered WhatsApp phone number and a test message to initiate the chat.
4. You will be redirected to a new WhatsApp chat with your phone number on it.

Now that your personal chat thread has been created, it will remain on your chat list, even if you close the app. Whenever you want to bookmark a URL or attachment, or refer back to a text at a later time, just send it as a message in your personal thread.

And that’s it, you can continue using the chat thread just as any other WhatsApp conversation, as long as you don’t delete it, or uninstall WhatsApp without having a chat backup.

Note: WhatsApp Direct works on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone devices.

Did you like this little trick to send WhatsApp messages to your own number? Let us know in the comments below.

Disclosure: WhatsApp Direct is a home-brewed app created at 7labs for the benefit of all our readers. As such, we built this app keeping the privacy of our readers in mind. Any information that is shared on WhatsApp Direct (phone numbers, messages, etc.), is sent directly to WhatsApp using their APIs. We do not store this information, nor do we forward this to other third parties.