If you have more than one phone — say one for your private life and one for work — you may have encountered issues with syncing your information across devices. This is especially true with WhatsApp. Officially, the company doesn’t allow you to use the same number with more than one device. So syncing your WhatsApp messages between two devices officially becomes impossible. However, there is another way you could do it — but it’s not the most elegant solution.

QUICK ANSWER

To use the same phone number on more than one device, use WhatsApp Web on your phone browser on the second phone. Be sure to request the desktop version of WhatsApp to avoid being redirected to the App Store or Play Store. Pop-up notifications may not work, depending on your browser, but you'll still be able to use WhatsApp web as a secondary device for the same number.

How to use WhatsApp on two or more phones

Let’s refer to the two devices as phone one and phone two. Phone one has the WhatsApp app installed, with the phone number officially registered in its settings. Phone one also has all of the previous conversation histories and media. Now you want to use the same number on phone two’s WhatsApp, have access to those conversations and media attachments, and sync any changes across both devices.

So how do you do it? Well, not by using the WhatsApp app on phone two. That will require a totally separate number, and although you can officially transfer your WhatsApp messaging history between phones, it won’t sync between devices. The transfer is one-way and is meant for users who are permanently changing devices.

Instead, this is one of the ways to take advantage of WhatsApp Web. On phone two, open your internet browser and go to https://web.whatsapp.com. Right away, request the desktop version of the website. The mobile version of the site will automatically push the app on you.
 

When it switches to the desktop site, you’ll see the QR code for linking devices.

 Over on phone one, go to Settings—>Linked Devices. Tap Link a Device and when the QR code scanner appears, scan the code on phone two.

The two phones will now link together, sync messaging, and so forth. However, you will immediately see that WhatsApp desktop is not optimized for mobile devices. So, as I said before, this is not the most elegant solution, especially for protracted chat sessions. But for the purposes of checking for new messages and quickly firing off a quick note to someone, it’ll work. The screenshot below actually makes it look bigger than it actually is. In reality, you will need to pinch and zoom in to read messages.

If you use this method on iOS Safari, you can tell Safari to place a direct link to WhatsApp Web on your home screen for easier access.

FAQs
Is there any way at all to use the same number on two instances of the WhatsApp app?

Unfortunately not. The WhatsApp app only accepts one number. If that number is being used by WhatsApp on another phone, WhatsApp will tell you the number is already in use and will ask for another number.

New search filters 

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging services in the world, with somewhere over a billion people using it on a regular basis. The platform is also rapidly evolving, as new features are being tested and rolled out constantly. This time, WhatsApp is rolling out new search filters in the WhatsApp Business application.

WhatsApp Business is an alternative messaging application developed by WhatsApp, intended for use by companies and other organizations to communicate with (potential) customers. It has some extra functionality over the standard WhatsApp application, such as business profiles, away and greeting messages, and landline/fixed phone number support.

WABetaInfo spotted a new addition to the WhatsApp Business application on Android and iOS — more search filters. You could already narrow your search results to messages containing photos, videos, links, GIFs, audio files, and/or documents, but now there are three additional options. You can now filter messages based on if the recipient is in your contacts list, and if the message has been read or not. As with the existing filters, you can use more than one at the same time.

It’s not clear when, or if, this functionality will arrive in the standard WhatsApp application on Android and iOS. However, the regular app has received several other improvements in recent months.

Previewing voice messages before sending them and new privacy features arrived in December, Novi integration for payments entered testing in November, and an updated Picture-in-Picture mode and end-to-end encrypted backups rolled out in October. There was also a new WhatsApp application for desktop Windows that was released in November.

There’s probably less of a need for the new search filters in the regular WhatsApp application, except for people that send and receive a significant amount of messages. Still, it would be nice to see it on the standard app as well.–androidauthority.com/xda-developers.com