WhatsApp app for Ubuntu (non-web)

Question

Are there are any non-web based apps for WhatsApp (think Skype) for Ubuntu?

I've read a bunch of things touching on this but all have ended up saying it was just a Trojan horse and pointed to the web app.

All the apps I found were a few years old, so I'm just checking whether there are any current ones.

I specifically put, not a webapp... that other question asks for a webapp. — abdnChap, Feb 08 '19 at 15:12
This question needs to be directed to the Whatsapp developers. There is only a Whatsapp webclient. — mondjunge, Feb 08 '19 at 15:30
I'm sorry about that - I had marked the question closed as duplicate, re-read, and removed my vote, but forgot to remove the comment. — Charles Green, Feb 08 '19 at 15:34
Is this a solution for you? https://askubuntu.com/questions/684415/install-whatsapp-webapp-on-ubuntu — Urmelinho, Mar 19 '19 at 08:37

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

4

There is an unofficial WhatsApp client for Linux in the Ubuntu Software app: whatsdesk.

WhatsDesk is a unofficial client of whatsapp

this project only insert a web whatsapp in a electron app and add desktop notification

It is available as snap package from the store (see above) and .deb package for download.

Sources and more information can be found on https://gitlab.com/zerkc/whatsdesk.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

1

answered May 21 '19 at 07:16

Claude Unterleitner

56

afaik, this still requires you to use whatsapp web, no? I think whatsdeck just syncs to your phone over wifi and can't run WhatsApp without it being installed on your phone. – Michael Altfield Sep 30 '22 at 00:30

yEmreAk.com · Answer 2 · 2019-05-18T13:04:31.433

You can create your own whatsapp app:

Type terminal sudo -H gedit /usr/share/applications/whatsapp-webapp.desktop
Copy following text to opened screen

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Name=WhatsApp
GenericName=WhatsApp
Comment=WhatsApp desktop webapp
#Exec=webapp-container --store-session-cookies --webappUrlPatterns=https?://*.whatsapp.com/* --user-agent-string='Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2228.0 Safari/537.36' https://web.whatsapp.com %u
Exec=/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --app=https://web.whatsapp.com/
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
MimeType=text/plain;
# If you want icon, type path of icon
# Icon=
Categories=Network;Application;
Keywords=WhatsApp;webapp;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=WhatsApp
StartupWMClass=web.whatsapp.com

Finally, keyboard shortcuts to open | create

bash -c "wmctrl -xa web.whatsapp.com || /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --app=https://web.whatsapp.com/"

lol wut. This is literally just thinly veiled WhatsApp Web. – Michael Altfield Sep 30 '22 at 00:30 — Michael Altfield, Sep 30 '22 at 00:30

WhatsApp app for Ubuntu (non-web)

2 Answers2