How to send a message on WhatsApp without saving that phone number to your iPhone

Looking to message someone on WhatsApp whose number you have not saved to your contacts list? Follow this tutorial where we show you seven easy ways to directly message a phone number on WhatsApp without having to save the number first.

How to send a WhatsApp Message without saving phone number to iPhone

Why you may want to message unsaved contacts on WhatsApp

When you install and open WhatsApp, it asks you to access your iPhone contacts. Once you do that, you can chat with anyone in your address book who has a WhatsApp account.

However, sometimes you come across situations when you simply want to message a number without saving their contact. This can be because of the following reasons:

Privacy: Lets say you have set your WhatsApp profile picture to show only to your contacts. Now, if you have to briefly message someone, like send a picture of a faulty product to a delivery guy, you may not want to save their number and potentially expose your profile picture to them.

Additionally, if you save a number and forget to delete it, that person can see your future WhatsApp Stories, new profile pictures, status, etc. I’m sure you don’t want that.

Temporary people: We come across various people, but not all are worth saving to the address book. If you simply want to message someone temporarily on WhatsApp, sending a message to an unsaved contact is helpful.

No log business policy: WhatsApp also has a business app called WA Business. The ability to message non-contacts on WhatsApp is helpful if you don’t want to save people’s numbers to your device but still message them.

Here are 7 quick, free, and effortless ways to send a message to someone on WhatsApp without adding their contact to your phone.

1. Use an iOS shortcut

Ease of use: 9/10

Make sure you have installed and set up WhatsApp on your iPhone.

Follow these steps to build an uncomplicated iOS shortcut that lets you message people on WhatsApp without saving their contact:

1) Open the Shortcuts app and tap the plus button from My Shortcuts.

2) Tap Search for apps and actions and get Send Message via WhatsApp action.

Send Message via WhatsApp in iPhone Shortcuts

3) Select optional next to Recipient and tap Ask Each Time.

4) Give this shortcut any name you like, change the shortcut icon, and tap X to save it.

Build Send Message via WhatsApp shortcut on iPhone

5) Choose the shortcut tile you just built and then tap Choose Recipient.

6) Type the phone number you want to message on WhatsApp and tap Done.

Choose unsaved recipient to message on WhatsApp

It will open your chat inside WhatsApp, from where you can send a message. As you see, there was no need to save the contact to your iPhone, and still, you could send a message on WhatsApp.

Important: Instead of opening the Shortcuts app every time and running the shortcut from there, you can follow the simple steps to add this shortcut to your iPhone Home Screen. After that, you can instantly run this shortcut from the Home Screen and message non-contacts quickly on WhatsApp.

2. Use a bookmarklet to WhatsApp unsaved contacts

Ease of use: 9/10

Messaging someone not saved to your iPhone contact isn’t unofficial, and WhatsApp supports it. But the approach isn’t very comfortable (method 5 below). However, I came across an old Facebook post by Ethan Shalev, who created a bookmarklet that prompts you to enter the phone number and then redirects you to message that unsaved number on WhatsApp. I slightly edited it. (A bookmarklet is a browser bookmark with a JavaScript command which adds a handy feature to that web browser.)

Here’s how to message anyone on WhatsApp without saving their number:

1) Open Safari on your iPhone and visit any website.

2) Tap the share button > Add to Favorites.

Add to Favorites in Safari Share Sheet

3) Give it any name like WA Unsaved Message and tap Save.

4) Now, open a new Safari tab to see the Start Page. Under Favorites, you will see the favorite bookmark you added in step 3. Press this bookmark and tap Edit.

Add to Favorites in Safari on iPhone and edit it

5) Tap in the URL field and tap x to clear it. After that, copy the code below and paste it there.

javascript:(function(){
var phone = prompt("Who you want to message?", "9876543210");
if (phone != null) {
window.location.href = "https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=" + phone;
}
})();

6) Select Save to create the bookmarklet. You have successfully finished the setup.

7) From now, whenever you want to message someone new on WhatsApp, open Safari and tap this bookmarklet.

WA Unsaved Message bookmarklet on iPhone

8) Replace what you see in the box with the phone number along with the country code and tap OK. The country code for the USA it’s +1, for India it’s +91, and for Brazil it’s +55.

Enter phone number you want to message on WhatsApp without saving it as the contact

That’s all there to it. The bookmarklet will automatically open a new chat with that unsaved person in the WhatsApp app. Finally, type your message and hit the send button.

3. Message unsaved contact from a group chat

Ease of use: 8/10

If you’re part of a WhatsApp group, you can message group members not saved in your iPhone contacts using the following steps:

1) Go to the WhatsApp group chat and press a non-saved contact. It will show the phone number and the name set by that person as their WhatsApp profile.

2) Choose More.

3) Select Message [phone number].

Message unsaved contact from WhatsApp group

4. Force WhatsApp to let you message unsaved contacts

Ease of use: 7/10

When WhatsApp is permitted to access your address book, it shows all your contacts who have a WhatsApp account. But if you revoke its permission to access your contacts, it will show you a box to enter any phone number and start a chat.

In my opinion, this box should be there even if you have allowed WhatsApp to access the contacts, and maybe in a future update, it’s added. But as of now, you will have to follow these steps:

1) Open iPhone Settings, scroll down to the bottom, and tap WhatsApp.

2) Toggle off Contacts.

Prevent WhatsApp from accessing your iPhone contacts

3) Open WhatsApp and tap the compose button from the upper right.

4) Enter the phone number of the person you wish to message on WhatsApp and tap Start a Chat.

Start a Chat with unsaved contact on iPhone

If you don’t give contacts access to WhatsApp, you can’t see other people’s WhatsApp Stories and will have difficulty contacting someone from your address book. So, you can follow steps 1 and 2 again to restore contacts access.

5. Use Wa.Me

Ease of use: 6.5/10

Wa.me is a URL owned by WhatsApp. Here’s how to use it to message non-contacts on WhatsApp:

1) Open Safari and type wa.me/ in the URL bar.

2) Now, enter the country code followed by the phone number with whom you wish to chat [https://wa.me/phonenumber]

3) Tap Open in the popup that says, “Open this page in WhatsApp [or WA Business]?”

Open this page in WhatsApp on iPhone

6. Use third-party sites

Ease of use: 7/10

In the above method, you manually entered wa.me followed by the phone number. However, if you aren’t pleased doing that every time, you can check out some third-party sites. All these websites do is ease the process outlined in method 5 above.

Note: I’m not very comfortable entering someone’s phone number on a third-party website or app unnecessarily. But if you have your reasons, you can visit one of these sites, enter the phone number with whom you wish to start a WhatsApp chat and then open that inside your WhatsApp app.

7. Use the Easy Message app

Ease of use: 8.5/10

Easy Message is a free, little iOS app that simplifies starting a WhatsApp chat with an unsaved phone number.

Follow these steps to send WhatsApp messages directly to a phone number without having to save the contact to your iPhone:

1) Get Easy Message from the App Store and open it.

2) Type or paste the phone number.

3) Optionally, you can tap Select Saved Message and choose a saved message or tap the plus icon to add a custom message.

4) When done, tap Start Chat in WhatsApp.

Easy Message will open WhatsApp and let you initiate a chat with that unsaved contact.

Easy Message to WhatsApp message non-saved contacts on iPhone

These are the various ways to message someone on WhatsApp without adding their phone number to your address book. Though the above methods are for iPhone users, several work on Android as well.

Other WhatsApp tutorials: