Use WhatsApp on up to five smartphones at once, if that's what you want

Meta has allowed the same WhatsApp account to exist on multiple devices for a while now. Notably, desktop apps and tablet apps have supported this feature. What WhatsApp didn’t support was multiple smartphones, but that changes today.

Now, whether on Android or iOS, you can use WhatsApp on two phones simultaneously. This works pretty much the same way as it does for computers. You download the app on your secondary device, scan a QR code created by your primary device, and boom: you’re chatting using the same account on two devices.

Notably, there was a way to do this before using a workaround. However, this method is no longer necessary.

Meta will allow users to have four secondary devices combined with one primary device for a total of five devices using one account. You can mix and match your setup for this. For example, you could have your primary phone, a secondary phone, a tablet, a laptop, and a desktop connection. You could have one phone and four tablets, or five phones. Once you hit that fifth device, though, you’ll need to remove one to add another. This also has cross-platform support, so you could have three Androids and two iPhones, if you wanted.

All your devices will have access to end-to-end encryption on all messages. You also can see up to one year’s worth of messages on your secondary device(s).

Please note that your primary phone does not need to be active for your secondary devices to work. In other words, if you turn your primary phone off, you can still use the same WhatsApp account on your other devices. If you power down your primary phone or otherwise prevent it from accessing WhatsApp’s servers for more than 14 days, though, your secondary device’s WhatsApp connection will stop working.

Get started using WhatsApp on two phones today!