WhatsApp introduces new contact manager

WhatsApp is introducing a built-in contact manager, allowing users to save contacts within the app and ensuring they don’t lose them when changing phones.

Currently, WhatsApp relies on the phone's address book for storing and managing contacts. However, this has caused issues for users who lose their devices or fail to back up their contact lists, as well as those who share phones or manage multiple accounts on one device.

To solve this, WhatsApp is launching a feature for WhatsApp Web and Windows that lets users save contacts independently of their phone. In other words, you won’t need your phone to add someone to WhatsApp. Contacts saved in WhatsApp will be stored securely in an Identity Proof Linked Storage (IPLS) system, which encrypts the names and numbers, making them accessible only to the user. This system allows for easy recovery of contacts in case of phone loss or device changes.

WhatsApp also announced that after the contact-saving feature, it plans to introduce a username-based system, which will remove the need for sharing phone numbers. This will enhance privacy, similar to what apps like Signal have done with end-to-end encryption and username-based accounts.