How to Send WhatsApp Message Without Saving Contact on iPhone & iPad
Have you ever wanted to quickly send a message on WhatsApp to a random phone number that you haven’t added to your contacts? And perhaps you just want to send that text through WhatsApp without adding them to contacts? You’ll be happy to know this is possible, with a bit of a workaround, thanks to the good old Shortcuts app on iPhone and iPad.
By default, WhatsApp forces its users to add someone to their contacts list before they can begin a conversation with them from the app, whether sending messages or making calls. This could be frustrating if you’re looking to quickly text message a stranger regarding your queries, or you’re just trying to sell something, or just engage in a quick back and forth with someone you have no intention on adding to your contacts. In some cases, you’d assign a random name to the contact which eventually messes up your list with unwanted data and contact information you don’t want to keep. However, this particular iOS shortcut makes the process easy by allowing you to create a new WhatsApp chat with just the phone number.
How to Send WhatsApp Text Messages Without Saving the Contacts Data on iPhone & iPad
Shortcuts app comes pre-installed on iOS 13, iPadOS 13, and later, but if your device is still running iOS 12, you can download it from the App Store. Older versions aren’t supported. Before you go ahead, you’ll need to set your device to allow the installation of third-party Shortcuts which you can learn more about. Just follow these steps once you’re done:
- Head over to this link and tap on “Get Shortcut” to download the iOS shortcut.
- Doing this will launch the Shortcuts app on your device and list out all the actions that’ll be performed by this Shortcut. Scroll down to the very bottom and tap on “Add Untrusted Shortcut” to install it on your device.
- Now, you’ll be prompted to configure this shortcut by assigning a default country code. Depending on where you live, type in the country code without the “+” sign and tap on “Done”.
- Next, head over to the My Shortcuts section to find the shortcut that you just installed. Tap on the “Open in WhatsApp” shortcut as shown below.
- You’ll get a pop-up at the top of your screen. Here, type in or paste the phone number from the clipboard and tap on “Done”.
- This will launch WhatsApp and start a new chat with the account that’s linked to the phone number you typed in.
There you go. As you can see, this Shortcut makes it really easy to start WhatsApp conversations with strangers, and without having to save their contact details to your device.
Of course, it goes without saying that the phone number must have a WhatsApp account tied to it in order to open a new conversation in the app. If not, the shortcut simply wouldn’t be able to complete the operation when it runs.
The country code you set as the default will be used if you type in the phone number without a country code. However, if you’re trying to start a conversation with someone who lives in a different country, you’ll need to manually enter the specific country code without the “+” sign for the shortcut to open a new WhatsApp chat.
This is just one of the ways to start a new WhatsApp chat without adding someone to your contacts list. Alternatively, you can do this right from WhatsApp too by disabling contacts access for the app and then using the start new chat option. However, this wouldn’t be an ideal solution for many users, since starting new conversations with contacts would become a lot more difficult.
Hopefully, you were able to take advantage of this shortcut to text random WhatsApp users without any issues. What’s your overall take on this nifty third-party shortcut? Have you installed any other shortcuts on your device? Do share your experiences and feel free to leave your valuable feedback in the comments section down below.
