If you tried to download WhatsApp on a Linux PC, the website would say that your device isn't supported and that you should use WhatsApp on your browser. In fact, what many Linux users would resort to would be to have a browser tab open on web.whatsapp.com when they need it (because notifications don't work when the tab is closed), or to install WhatsApp Web as a PWA (Portable Web App), which would fix the notifications issue, but it still wouldn't feel like a desktop app: for example, PWAs currently have no way to show a system tray icon, that would allow to quickly open the app, while displaying a badge with useful information, like a count of unread messages.
Instead, whatsapp-linux is a package that allows you to have a true desktop experience on many Linux distributions: thanks to the Electron framework, WhatsApp Web will be wrapped as a desktop app and enhanced with various additional features that will make it integrate nicely with your environment!
So what does this package add? Here's the complete list:
- Native notifications for new messages, even when the WhatsApp window isn't open;
- A tray icon with a badge that displays the total amount of unread messages in unarchived chats;
- Right-clicking the tray icon shows a menu from which WhatsApp can be configured to start automatically in background on login;
- If there's no network connectivity when the app starts, the tray icon turns gray and the window shows an informative message instead of WhatsApp;
- If the connectivity is restored at a later time, the app will automatically try to load WhatsApp;
- If WhatsApp can't be loaded for any other reason, the tray icon turns red and the window shows an error page with a retry button.
In the latest release page you can find the package as a .deb or .rpm file, which should be enough for most users, but if your package manager doesn't support any of these formats (or you don't have permission to use it), there's also a zip file: just extract it somewhere and run the whatsapp-linux binary!
Note: Background autostart on login currently relies on whatsapp-linux being installed through a package manager, so you cannot enable this feature if you're running the binary from the extracted zip file.
This software is not associated with or endorsed by WhatsApp or Meta in any way. Use of the WhatsApp name and logos is governed by the WhatsApp Brand Guidelines.
IANAL, but I've chosen to license this software under the zlib License because:
- it allows commercial use, distribution and modification, as long as differences from the original software are documented and, when in source form, the license and copyright notice are not removed or altered;
- it includes a limitation of warranty and liability. (I still hope
whatsapp-linuxis useful to you, though, and if you find any bugs or have any suggestions, the Issues page is their place!)
Compared to the GPL-3.0, this license still forces anyone distributing the sources to keep the notice, but it allows proprietary software developers to build this project and distribute the binaries, with a condition that they state any changes made. This is a deliberate decision, so that the code can (at least in theory) be used to create an official Linux version of WhatsApp.
- Fix unread messages count when a chat is marked as unread: it should increase instead of decreasing by 1
- Fix unread messages count sometimes not changing when a burst of chat updates is received
- Make background autostart on login work when the app is run without being installed