Hi. I’m thinking about switching to Linux on my smartphone. The only reason I can’t is because in my country WhatsApp is everywhere and I’m expected to have it for various school/sport things. I’d like to setup whatsapp on my laptop, but I don’t know how.

I know WhatsApp Web and Desktop exist, but in the past you needed to log in to your phone at least once a month for the web session to keep working. Is it that still the case?

Or can I just log in from Android (and be fine as long as I don’t accidentally log out)?

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
    3·
    8 months ago

    but in the past you needed to log in to your phone at least once a month for the web session to keep working. Is it that still the case?

    Yes, unfortunately. From my limited experience trying to get it off a smartphone, leaving the number on a dumb phone and trying to activate on a sim-less smartphone, it simply won’t work if doesn’t detect a mobile number in its host Android

    It doesn’t use servers to keep messages, so when you first access from outside the “original device”, it downloads the last few received messages of every conversation still in your phone, but rarely everything.