Open conversation in Whatsapp and populate the text

Question

I want to open WhatsApp to a specific conversation and populate the text field with some string.

Code that I have and I managed to open the conversation with a contact:

private void openConversationWithWhatsapp(String e164PhoneNumber){
    String whatsappId = e164PhoneNumber+"@s.whatsapp.net";
    Uri uri = Uri.parse("smsto:" + whatsappId);
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SENDTO, uri);
    intent.setPackage("com.whatsapp");

    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "text");
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "subject");
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TITLE, "title");
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_EMAIL, "email");
    intent.putExtra("sms_body", "The text goes here");
    intent.putExtra("text","asd");
    intent.putExtra("body","body");
    intent.putExtra("subject","subjhect");

    startActivity(intent);
}

The text box however is not filled with content. I tried to peek inside the AndroidManifest.xml file and found the following info regarding their conversation activity:

<activity android:theme="@style/Theme.App.CondensedActionBar" android:name="com.whatsapp.Conversation" android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|uiMode|screenSize|smallestScreenSize" android:windowSoftInputMode="stateUnchanged">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.SENDTO" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
        <data android:scheme="sms" />
        <data android:scheme="smsto" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

Does somebody know the extra to use? Are they blocking this on purpose? I saw an API for iOS that they have in their FAQ page.

Answer 1

Update in 2017

based on this Whatsapp FAQ

im using this url

https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=62xxxxxxx&text=Hello,%20from%20my%20Apps

which 62 is Indonesia's Dialing code

then i use intent like this (im using kotlin)

val uri = Uri.parse("https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=62xxxxxxx&text=Hello,%20from%20my%20Apps")
        val intent = Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri)
        startActivity(intent)

replace 62xxxxx with your number this work fine to me

Answer 2

Try using the following solution to send image and text.

You can setType as "text" and remove extra_stream to use it only for sending text.

            Intent sendIntent = new Intent("android.intent.action.SEND");
            File f=new File("path to the file");
            Uri uri = Uri.fromFile(f);
            sendIntent.setComponent(new ComponentName("com.whatsapp","com.whatsapp.ContactPicker"));
            sendIntent.setType("image");
            sendIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM,uri);
            sendIntent.putExtra("jid", PhoneNumberUtils.stripSeparators("919xxxxxxxxx")+"@s.whatsapp.net");
            sendIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT,"sample text you want to send along with the image");
            startActivity(sendIntent);

EXTRA INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROCESS OF FINDING THE SOLUTION :

After reverse engineering WhatsApp, I came across the following snippet of Android manifest,

Normal Share intent, uses "SEND" which does not allow you to send to a specific contact and requires a contact picker.

The specific contact is picked up by Conversation class and uses "SEND_TO" action, but it uses sms body and can not take up image and other attachments.

 <activity android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|screenSize|smallestScreenSize|uiMode" android:name="com.whatsapp.Conversation" android:theme="@style/Theme.App.CondensedActionBar" android:windowSoftInputMode="stateUnchanged">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.SENDTO"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"/>
                <data android:scheme="sms"/>
                <data android:scheme="smsto"/>
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>

Digging further, I came across this,

 <activity android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|screenSize|smallestScreenSize|uiMode" android:name="com.whatsapp.ContactPicker" android:theme="@style/Theme.App.NoActionBar">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.PICK"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
                <category android:name="com.whatsapp"/>
            </intent-filter>
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
                <data android:mimeType="audio/*"/>
                <data android:mimeType="video/*"/>
                <data android:mimeType="image/*"/>
                <data android:mimeType="text/plain"/>
                <data android:mimeType="text/x-vcard"/>
                <data android:mimeType="application/pdf"/>
                <data android:mimeType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document"/>
                <data android:mimeType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet"/>
                <data android:mimeType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation"/>
                <data android:mimeType="application/msword"/>
                <data android:mimeType="application/vnd.ms-excel"/>
                <data android:mimeType="application/vnd.ms-powerpoint"/>
            </intent-filter>
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND_MULTIPLE"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
                <data android:mimeType="audio/*"/>
                <data android:mimeType="video/*"/>
                <data android:mimeType="image/*"/>
            </intent-filter>
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"/>
                <data android:host="send" android:scheme="whatsapp"/>
            </intent-filter>
            <meta-data android:name="android.service.chooser.chooser_target_service" android:value=".ContactChooserTargetService"/>
        </activity>

Finally using a decompiler for ContactPicker and Conversation class,the extra key-value for phone number was found to be "jid".