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I have been looking for one for a long time now, but I haven't found even one working port of Whatsapp web for ubuntu.

There was one called whatsie if I remember correctly, but now it doesn't work anymore because the version of chrome is old, or something like that.

Thanks in advance! :)

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  • 3
    In short, no, and WhatsApp actively shut out third party clients. You can use WhatsApp Web but you must have the official client installed and running on an Android/iOS phone to allow access from web.
    – dobey
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 21:22

15 Answers 15

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You can also just create a Chrome launcher for Whatsapp Web like this:

  1. Use Chrome browser to go to https://web.whatsapp.com and follow the instructions to connect your phone.

  2. Go to Chrome settings ⇒ More tools ⇒ Create shortcut. Check "Open as window" and press "Create". This will create a desktop launcher to Whatsapp web that opens in its own window. Allow desktop notifications (if needed).

And that's it! I assume this workaround works for Chromium as well, but haven't tried it yet.

PS.This method works also for Google Calendar, Google Keep and such tools for which there is no (official) linux client available.

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  • This is so helpful!, it's pretty good for what most users need
    – NaturalDevCR
    Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 2:59
  • Are you aware of any way to make that work with Firefox?
    – KubaFYI
    Commented Nov 30, 2021 at 18:51
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I don't use any Whatsapp client on Ubuntu, but from my computer I use Whatsapp web:

https://web.whatsapp.com

It's an official Whatsapp web site meaning as trustable as Whatsapp phone app. There are plenty of Firefox extensions that work with it.

There is also whatsdesk, an unofficial client for Ubuntu. It appears in KDE Discover results when "Whatsapp" is searched, so you can probably have a look into your software center to. You can also install it with:

sudo snap install whatsdesk

But I have never tested it and it's unofficial, so I would look for users feedback first...

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    It seems to work perfect for me! Huge thanks :D
    – Argaman
    Commented Jan 30, 2019 at 7:54
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    The problem with the web version is that you can't do video/audio calls.
    – a06e
    Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 23:18
  • @becko yes it's true. Please note that official Whatsapp desktop client does not offer this possibility neither.
    – FloT
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 17:11
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    +1 very happy with whatsdesk, this should be the top answer
    – alle_meije
    Commented Aug 30, 2021 at 11:13
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Following this article, I tried up Rambox on my Mint installation. Works perfectly with Whatsapp so far. It has a free edition (like Franz) but doesn't have the annoying ads that block the app for 10 seconds every few hours.

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  • I've just found Rambox is occupying about 900 MB in my home directory. It's very disappointing. I'll try another app for using WhatsApp
    – densz
    Commented Jul 30, 2020 at 19:40
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    For those who might care, on my computer, it's 15,077 items, totalling 984.9 MB. Don't see why this is a problem though unless one is on a very small disk. Files are in ~/.config/Rambox.
    – CoderGuy123
    Commented Jul 31, 2020 at 20:08
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On my Ubuntu 16.04.5LTS system, apt-cache search shows me: 

$ apt-cache search whatsapp
iwatch - realtime filesystem monitoring program using inotify
python-yowsup - library to implement a WhatsApp client
yowsup-cli - command line tool that acts as WhatsApp client

Have you tried yowsup-cli?

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  • I preferred something with a proper gui, but from what I have seen, it does act like a whatsapp client. So thanks! :D
    – Argaman
    Commented Jan 30, 2019 at 7:49
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I use a chrome app called WhatsChrome. it is very good. Give it a try. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatschrome/bgkodfmeijboinjdegggmkbkjfiagaan

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  • Used it by this recommendation - Perfect! Suggestion: it has an annoying "WhatsChrome is Ready Message" that it shows before the actual Whatsapp message alert. Can be removed using Gnome Extension: extensions.gnome.org/extension/1007/…
    – Chicko
    Commented Feb 3, 2020 at 13:36
  • @Chicko, actually Opera browser can also be of great help. It has an inbuilt app window for WhatsApp at the top left of the browser itself.
    – ThunderBird
    Commented Mar 20, 2020 at 10:52
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There's an alternative which could be very helpful too.

Franz: You can get it from https://meetfranz.com/. It will also help you with more than just having WhatsApp on your Ubuntu, in fact, it is a messaging app that combines chat & messaging services into one application.

Hope it is of help to you.

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There are lots of recommendations in this thread for desktop wrappers around WhatsApp Web. This is not the same as WhatsApp Desktop, which has additional features like video calling.

Anyone making recommendations along these lines should specify what they are referring to.

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I actually use Fedora, so the .desktop and other file paths may probably be different in Ubuntu.

OBS: This is similar to other answers, but it differs because by following the instructions below you will you have an app-like experience instead of a regular chrome window.

Anyway, the idea is essentially the same: You can create a file named chome-whataspp.desktop on your .local/share/applications/ directory that launches chrome in the app mode (a separate window, with no tabs and that act as a desktop app. Even the tray icon will show as the whatsapp logo istead of chrome's icon).

OBS: You'll need to download a png Whatsapp logo (not for the tray, which is loaded from the web page, but for the launcher). This is easy to find one with a transparent background in google images.

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Exec=/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome -app="https://web.whatsapp.com/"
Terminal=false
Icon=<path to a png logo file, (e.g. /home/<user>/Icons/WhatsApp.png)>
Type=Application
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml_xml;
Icon[C]=<path to a png logo file, (e.g. /home/<user>/Icons/WhatsApp.png)>
Name[C]=WhatsApp (Chrome)
Name=WhatsApp (Chrome)
Comment[C]=WhatsApp (chrome in app mode)
Comment=Direct link to WhatsApp web in chrome app mode
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Probably right now you have seen a lot of answers to your questions. But I would recommend you to only use official website (https://web.whatsapp.com/) for this purpose as it's official and has minimal risks. Although many plugins/client can give you the desired results but they're not official and are 3rd party softwares which can't be trusted. They can easily spy on you.

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    Nothing new about this answer...
    – Artur Meinild
    Commented Mar 16, 2021 at 8:25
  • The only one secure and true answer =)
    – Matthias Lenmher
    Commented Feb 15, 2022 at 12:54
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I use WazzApp.

It runs as a standalone app and it's basically the same as the web app with some tweaks to increase functionality.

https://github.com/diospiroverde/WazzApp

enter image description here

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Yes, there is! Look here: https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/whatsapp-desktop

This is a debian package dedicated for Linux Mint but it works perfectly on Ubuntu (I am normally using Linux Mint on my PC but I have recently installed Ubuntu on my laptop and I just installed it also there - no difference;)

If you have problem with that link on Ubuntu, use this one: https://mint.pkgs.org/19.3/mint-import-amd64/whatsapp-desktop_0.6.1_amd64.deb.html (Download section, there is a direct link to a binary package).

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WALC is quite good, it has tray icon, and desktop notifications: https://github.com/cstayyab/WALC

Alternatively you can try Qtwaw, which is Qt based based wrapper. But you would have to build it manually and I also could not get the tray icon and notifications to work: https://gitlab.com/scarpetta/qtwaw

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Not specifically, but this one will fulfil your needs.

For those who do not want to open WhatsApp as a tab on their browsers, can open WhatsApp in its own window on Linux and this works in most distributions. It will even come in the alt+tab menu.

  1. You need the Microsoft Edge browser. It is available at the time of writing as an install through Microsoft's websites.
  2. Go to web.whatsapp.com and sign in with your QR Code.
  3. Click the three dots > Apps > Install this site as an app > Name your app and confirm icon
  4. Close MS Edge and restart it. You should already be able to find it in your app menu

I am not sure if this works in other chromium browsers, I could not find the Apps menu in Chrome and Chromium, it just creates a shortcut and nothing else.

Thanks

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  • It is really shameful for a company like WhatsApp that despite their app being developed in the cross platform Electron, it does not support linux. It is just a matter of publishing it, the hybrid code would be same! WhatsApp doesn't support Windows 7 too, while a number of Electron based apps do. For example, Telegram Desktop too is built on the same Electron framework and runs very well on Ubuntu. Only WhatsApp knows what's the problem in packaging an official Ubuntu client for WhatsApp
    – Vivaan Mathur
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 9:42
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whatsapp-for-linux

This desktop client app was launched in June 2020, and the latest release 1.4.1 came out in January 2022. The developer, Enes Can, is supported by 8 other contributors as of February 2022.

It's available in Snap Store as well as Arch Linux, Gentoo, NixOS and OpenMandriva repositories, in addition to the source code plus AppImage (200+ MB), Snap (100+ MB) and DEB (<100 KB) packages at: https://github.com/eneshecan/whatsapp-for-linux

Features

  • All WhatsApp Web features excluding audio and image capture
  • Zoom in/out System tray icon
  • Autostart with system
  • Fullscreen mode
  • Show/Hide header bar by pressing Alt+H
  • Spell check in system language (might need to install the aspell dictionary package)
  • Open chat by phone number

whatsapp-for-linux screenshot

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There is a Pidgin plugin for Whatsapp, called purple-gowhatsapp. It is cross-platform. I have used it on windows and it works!

Personally, I prefer this because I find the official Whatsapp Web or WhatsApp Desktop UI to have too large visual elements and clunky.

There are some missing features as noted on their webpage, but the plugin seems to be actively developed.

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