In a major move, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that WhatsApp is finally rolling out the option for users to log into the messaging app from more than one phone.
Taking to Facebook, Zuckerberg announced: “Starting today, you can log into the same WhatsApp account on up to four phones.”
To date, WhatsApp users have only been able to use one WhatsApp account on one phone — a setting that users have always complained about.
“Your WhatsApp account can only be verified with one registered phone number. If you have a dual SIM phone, please note that you still must choose one number to verify with WhatsApp. There is no option to have a verified WhatsApp account with two different phone numbers,” the WhatsApp FAQs.
However, currently, users can connect WhatsApp on the web, android tablets, companion phones, and other devices by linking up to four devices to their primary phone at a time.
According to WhatsApp, the new feature — which will allow users’ messages to be synced across devices including other phones — will be rolled out to all users within the coming weeks.
Therefore, if one device is switched off, users will be able to access the app on other devices.
WhatsApp — with more than 2 billion users — is one of the biggest messaging services. However, its lack of multi-phone support was a result of full end-to-end encryption support for chats and calls.
However, back in 2021, the company started testing multi-device compatibility with select beta users.
Meta — formerly known as Facebook — announced two years ago that it had developed new technology to sync messages across devices without compromising end-to-end encryption protection.
WhatsApp competitors like Telegram and Messenger already offer multi-device sync for messages; however, they didn’t have support for end-to-end encryption.
In the following year, WhatsApp rolled out its multi-device feature for all, but it didn’t support multiple phones.
WhatsApp is also rolling out a new way to link devices using a one-time code.
A blog post of the company announced: “You can now get a one-time-use code by entering your mobile number on WhatsApp Web, which you can use to link devices instead of scanning the QR code on your mobile phone. We’ll make this feature available for more linked devices in the future.”
