Sharing link on WhatsApp from mobile website (not application) for Android

Question

Just saw it on a website and seems to work on latest Android with latest chrome and whatsapp now too! Give the link a new shot!

<a href="whatsapp://send?text=The text to share!" data-action="share/whatsapp/share">Share via Whatsapp</a>

Rechecked it today (17^th April 2015):
Works for me on iOS 8 (iPhone 6, latest versions) Android 5 (Nexus 5, latest versions).

It also works on Windows Phone.

The above answers are bit outdated. Although those method work, but by using below method, you can share any text to a predefined number. The below method works for android, WhatsApp web, IOS etc.

You just need to use this format:

<a href="https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=whatsappphonenumber&text=urlencodedtext"></a>

UPDATE-- Use this from now(Nov-2018)

<a href="https://wa.me/whatsappphonenumber/?text=urlencodedtext"></a>

---

Use: https://wa.me/15551234567

Don't use: https://wa.me/+001-(555)1234567

To create your own link with a pre-filled message that will automatically appear in the text field of a chat, use https://wa.me/whatsappphonenumber/?text=urlencodedtext where whatsappphonenumber is a full phone number in international format and URL-encodedtext is the URL-encoded pre-filled message.

Example:https://wa.me/15551234567?text=I'm%20interested%20in%20your%20car%20for%20sale

To create a link with just a pre-filled message, use https://wa.me/?text=urlencodedtext

Example:https://wa.me/?text=I'm%20inquiring%20about%20the%20apartment%20listing

After clicking on the link, you will be shown a list of contacts you can send your message to.

For more information, see https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/26000030

Currently, it's very easy to achieve this. You only need to add the following code to your pages:

<a href="whatsapp://send?text=<<HERE GOES THE URL ENCODED TEXT YOU WANT TO SHARE>>" data-action="share/whatsapp/share">Share via Whatsapp</a>

And that's it. No Javascript needed, nothing else needed. Of course you can style it as you want and include a nice Whatsapp icon.

I tested this in my Android device with Google Chrome. The versions:

• Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)
• Chrome Mobile 37.0.2062.117. Also tested on Firefox Mobile 31.0.
• Whatsapp V 2.11.399

It also works on iOS. I've made a quick test on an iPhone 5 with Safari and it works as well.

Hope this helps someone. :-)

According to the new documentation, the link is now:

<a href="https://wa.me/?text=urlencodedtext">Share this</a>

If it doesn't work, try this one :

<a href="whatsapp://send?text=urlencodedtext">Share this</a>

The official docs say to use: wa.me. Don't use wa.me. I apologize for the length of these results, but it's been a rapidly-evolving issue....

April, 2020 Results

Share Link

This link is incorrect. Close this window and try a different link.

May, 2020 Results

Share Link GitHub Ticket: WhatsApp short link without phone number not working anymore

We couldn't find the page you were looking for

Looks like you're looking for a page that doesn't exist. Or a page we might have just deleted. Either way, go back or be sure to check the url, your spelling and try again.

August, 2020 Results

Share Link

Works as expected!

LATEST - October, 2020 Results

Share Link

(Broken again!) og:image tag previews are disabled when using wa.me.

Based on some of the comments I'm seeing, it seems like this still be an intermittent problem, so, going forward, I recommend you stick to the api.whatsapp.com URL!

If you want to share, you must absolutely use one of the two following URL formats:

https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=YourShareTextHere
https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=YourShareTextHere&phone=123

If you are interested in watching a project that keeps track of these URLs, then check us out!: https://github.com/bradvin/social-share-urls#whatsapp

Recently WhatsApp updated on its official website that we need to use this HTML tag in order to make it shareable to mobile sites:

<a href="whatsapp://send?text=Hello%20World!">Hello, world!</a>

You can replace text= to have your link or any text content

LATEST UPDATE

Now you can use the latest API from whatsapp https://wa.me/ without worrying about the user agent, the API will do the user agent handling.

Share pre-filled text with contact selection option in respective whatsapp client (Android / iOS / Webapp):

https://wa.me/?text=urlencodedtext

Open Chat Dialog for a particular whatsapp user in respective whatsapp client (Android / iOS / Webapp):

https://wa.me/whatsappphonenumber

Share pre-filled text with a particular user (Combine above two):

https://wa.me/whatsappphonenumber/?text=urlencodedtext

Note : whatsappphonenumber should be full phone number in international format. Omit any zeroes, brackets or dashes when adding the phone number in international format.

For official documentation visit https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/26000030