Starting with WhatsApp Web and Windows, you will be able to manage your contacts directly from WhatsApp with a built-in contact manager, the company announced on Tuesday. The feature would “eventually” come to other linked devices as well.
Until now, only contacts saved directly to your mobile device appear as contacts on WhatsApp. With the new feature, users will be able to manage and add contacts exclusively to WhatsApp or sync them to their phones. This feature is extremely useful if you share phones, or if you want to separate business and personal contacts when managing multiple accounts. In case you lose your phone, you could also easily restore the contacts you saved directly to WhatsApp on a new device.
WhatsApp says users will “eventually” be able to manage and save contacts by usernames. WhatsApp usernames will provide an extra layer of privacy, so users don’t have to share their private phone numbers when messaging someone.
The new contacts system on WhatsApp uses an encrypted storage system called Identity Proof Linked Storage (IPLS). According to Meta, IPLS is “a new system that deters unauthorized access to sensitive data by effectively coupling any data access to publicly auditable identity key changes published to WhatsApp’s key transparency infrastructure.”
Image: WhatsApp
