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 Save WhatsApp Status photos & videos to iPhone, or Android

Save WhatsApp Status photos & videos to iPhone, or Android

Earlier this year, WhatsApp launched its Snapchat Stories clone called Status, which has become quite popular over the months. The Status feature lets you upload multiple photos and videos of your whereabouts throughout the day, such that they come together to tell your story. Your Status is automatically reset after 24 hours.

If anyone in your contacts has updated their Status, it becomes visible in the new Status tab. And you can tap on a particular contact’s icon to view their status. But, WhatsApp doesn’t currently allow you to download Status photos and videos directly to your phone.

Even so, you might still want to download a photo or two from a friend’s status update someday. Here, we’ll explore a few tricks to download WhatsApp Status photos and videos of your friends, directly to an iPhone or Android devices.

Download WhatsApp Status Photos & Videos on iPhone [without jailbreak]

The official WhatsApp app for the iPhone doesn’t have any button to let you download someone’s WhatsApp Story. But a third party WhatsApp tweak, called WhatsApp++ has added the facility to download photos and videos, as you’re viewing other peoples’ stories. Your downloads get saved to the Camera Roll in the Photos app, so that you have no problem accessing them later.

Since WhatsApp++ is an unofficial tweak, it’s not available on the App Store. And normally, you have to jailbreak your iPhone in order to install it. But because of BuildStore, you can install WhatsApp++ (and many other out-of-store apps) on your iOS device, without having to jailbreak it. All you need is a $9.99/year per device subscription to BuildStore.

Note: Installing WhatsApp++ from BuildStore requires you to uninstall the original WhatsApp app.

1. Uninstall the original WhatsApp app from your iPhone if it’s already installed.
2. Sign up for a new BuildStore account and register your iOS device.
3. On your registered iOS device, open Safari and navigate to the WhatsApp++ app page.
4. Tap on the Install button.
5. Once installed, register WhatsApp++ with a valid phone number.
6. Open WhatsApp++, tap on the Status page and view the particular Status that you want to download media from.
7. When the particular photo or video that you want to download, is playing, just tap on the Download button in the bottom right corner. The file will be downloaded to your Camera Roll.

Note: There are other ways to install iOS apps from outside of the App Store without jailbreak, for free. But, in these cases, you usually need to reinstall the app every 7 days to keep using it. Moreover, it’s quite difficult to find a reliable, unaltered installer (IPA) for specific iOS apps on the Internet.

BuildStore is a preferred solution because of its ease of use and trustworthiness. All apps and tweaks found on the BuildStore repository are updated and uploaded by their developers.

Download WhatsApp Status Photos & Videos on Android

On Android, whenever you View a user’s status in WhatsApp, the media files present therein get automatically downloaded to the hidden .Status folder located in WhatsApp/Media/ directory of your Internal Storage.

You can manually save those files by browsing to the WhatsApp/Media/ directory using an advanced file manager like ES File Explorer, and then enable hidden files to view the .Status directory. From there, you can just copy the contents of the .Status folder and paste it in a location of your choice.

If you do not want to do this manually, there are several apps available on Google Play Store that offer to let you save WhatsApp Status photos and videos. In this demonstration, we’ll use an app called Story Saver for WhatsApp. Here’s how it works.

Note: It is assumed that you already have WhatsApp installed on your Android device.

1. Download and install Story Saver, if you haven’t already done it.
2. Open WhatsApp and navigate to the Status section.
3. View the Status of the person, from which you want to download media files. While being viewed, WhatsApp will automatically download the containing media files in its internal hidden “.Status” folder.
4. Now open Story Saver and tap on Recent Stories.
5. Browse the downloaded photos and videos from viewed WhatsApp Statuses, and select the ones that you want to download.
6. Click on the Download button at the top-right corner.

The selected Story Photos & Videos will be downloaded to your Photos Gallery. You can also tap on individual photos and videos and use the Share menu to transfer them to other apps.

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.