WhatsApp’s Multi-Device Feature: How it Works and What You Should Know

Image Credit: The Times of India

WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Facebook, recently announced a new feature that allows users to access their accounts on up to four different devices at the same time. This is a significant departure from the app’s previous limitation of being tied to a single device. Here’s how it works and what you should know.

To enable the feature, users must have the latest version of WhatsApp installed on their primary device, which must also be connected to the internet. Once that’s done, they can link up to three additional devices, such as tablets or secondary phones, to their account. The process involves scanning a QR code from the primary device using the camera on the secondary device, which then syncs the account data and chat history to that device. This process must be repeated for each additional device.

It’s worth noting that the multi-device feature has some limitations. For example, end-to-end encryption, which is a key privacy feature of WhatsApp, is not enabled by default on linked devices. To maintain end-to-end encryption, users can opt to use a “linked device password” that must be entered periodically to keep the devices connected.

Another limitation is that certain account features, such as messaging or calling someone who is not in your contacts, may not be available on linked devices. Additionally, users will not be able to see their messages on the primary device if they are deleted on a linked device.

RE-reported from the story originally published in The Times of India