252

So, what do YOU mostly use WhatsApp for?

So, what do YOU mostly use WhatsApp for?

To send messages

For audio calls

For video calls

To share videos (and other files)

If WhatsApp is more of a media platform for you than anything else and you use it for sharing photos, videos and other files, you are probably already well aware of the messenger’s limitations.

The maximum size of a media file you can send with the app (whether it’s a photo, video or audio message) is just 16 MB. And while this is plenty enough to exchange memes and photos, it makes sending videos in high quality or larger files impossible.

This is why if you are looking for a quick and efficient way to send large media files over the web, we recommend using FileWhopper instead.

FileWhopper is a new service for transferring files and folders online, and it is specifically designed to send over large amounts of data — even a 10TB folder. In fact, there is no size limit.

Sending a file or folder with FileWhopper just takes a few steps. You won’t need to compress your data or upload it to the cloud. You also won’t need to sign up for a subscription — you will get a one-time fee based on your file's or folder’s size.

The technology is fail-safe, ensuring that your transfer progress is saved when there’s a drop in your internet connection.

Now that we’ve explained how to send over large media files online, let’s get back to WhatsApp and see what you can do to quickly resolve your WhatsApp contact issues.

Here’s what we'll cover:

• How to sync your contacts to WhatsApp
• Why WhatsApp is not syncing contacts and what to do if that happens
• What to do when WhatsApp is showing numbers instead of the names of your contacts

Let’s begin.

Just like on an iPhone, you need to give WhatsApp clearance to automatically access the contacts saved on your Android device. If you don’t grant this permission the first time you set up the app, you will have to go through your phone’s settings to get it done. 

Here’s what you have to do:

1. Go to Settings on your Android device.
2. Tap ‘Apps.’
3. Locate WhatsApp on the list of displayed apps and tap on it.
4. Tap ‘Permissions.’
5. Turn on the permission to modify and read your contacts.
6. To ensure that WhatsApp can function well, you can turn on all the other available permissions as well.

You can also use this method:

1. Go to your Android device’s settings.
2. Tap ‘Accounts.’
3. You will find WhatsApp on the list if the account is already added to your phone. If it is not on the list, then tap ‘Add Account’ and add your WhatsApp account.
4. Launch WhatsApp and click the ‘More options’ icon (the three vertical dots) in the top-right corner.
5. Tap ‘Sync your WhatsApp.’

Once WhatsApp has access to your Android device’s phonebook, all contacts that are registered on Whatsapp will be visible in the app. To see your WhatsApp contacts, here’s what you have to do:

1. Launch WhatsApp.
2. Switch to Chats.
3. Tap the ‘New chat’ icon in the bottom-right corner of your screen. You will see the list of all your contacts.

When someone sends you a message on WhatsApp but you don’t have them on your contact list, WhatsApp will only show the number instead of the person’s name. If you want the name to appear, you have to save the number in your phone book.

One way to do that is to copy the number, go to Contacts on your Android device, and tap on ‘Create contact.’ But there’s another way to save the number while still on WhatsApp. There are two methods you can use:

Method 1:

1. Open the chat that sent you a message.
2. Tap the ‘More Options’ icon (the three vertical dots) in the top-right corner of your screen.
3. Tap ‘Add to Contacts.’
4. Tap ‘Create new contact’ or ‘Add to existing contact’ depending on your preference.
5. Enter the person’s name.
6. Tap ‘Save.’

Method 2:

1. While on WhatsApp, tap on Chats.
2. Tap the ‘New chat’ icon in the bottom-right corner of your screen.
3. Tap ‘New contact.’
4. Now enter the person’s name and phone number. You can include other details (such as email address, company, and more) if you wish.
5. Tap ‘Save.’

Whichever method you choose to use, after you have saved the number, it will also be in your phone’s address book. The person’s name will now appear on the chat head.

If you are sure that a contact has been saved on your phone but yet you are seeing the number instead of the person’s name, here’s what you have to do:

1. Go to your device’s settings and tap on ‘Users & accounts.’
2. Locate WhatsApp and tap on it.
3. Tap the ‘Remove Account’ button.
4. Tap ‘Remove account’ to confirm the action.
5. Launch WhatsApp and tap the ‘New chat’ icon at the bottom of the screen.
6. Tap the ‘More Options’ icon (the three vertical dots) in the top-right corner of the screen.
7. Tap ‘Refresh.’

Afterward, make sure that you’ve allowed WhatsApp all the necessary permissions on your Android device:

1. Go to your device's settings.
2. Tap on ‘Apps & notifications.’
3. Locate WhatsApp and tap on it.
4. Tap on ‘Permissions.’
5. Enable all permissions.

Why Is WhatsApp Not Syncing Your Contacts?

It may happen that the contacts on your Android phone do not show on WhatsApp. There are several reasons why this can happen. The first thing you should consider is whether those users are registered on WhatsApp. If they are not, then they won’t appear on the app. Only those that have a WhatsApp account will appear. You will know that this is so if you can’t find a particular contact but others are there.

The next thing you should do is check whether you have permitted WhatsApp to access your phonebook. There are also other factors that can cause WhatsApp not to sync your contacts (for example, bugs and cache problems).

We will show you how to fix these issues. Please keep reading.

Fix 1: Grant WhatsApp Access to Contacts

When you install WhatsApp and set it up for the first time, the app requests access to your phonebook. If you deny the request at that point, then WhatsApp won’t be able to import your contacts. You’ll have to do it manually later on. We’ve already discussed how to do this earlier in the article. However, there’s another method you can try:

1. Go to your device’s settings.
2. Tap ‘Apps & notifications.’
3. Tap ‘App permissions.’
4. Tap ‘Contacts.’
5. Scroll through the list of apps and locate WhatsApp.
6. Tap the toggle to enable access.

After you’ve followed the above steps, go back to WhatsApp. Your contacts will now be automatically synced. However, if they are not, then proceed to the solutions below.

Fix 2: Clear the WhatsApp Cache

If you’ve granted WhatsApp permission to access the contacts on your device and yet you still can’t find them when you launch the app, clearing the cache might just help. Cache issues can cause your app not to function properly. Here’s what you have to do:

1. Go to Settings on your Android device.
2. Tap ‘Apps & notifications.’
3. Scroll through the list of apps and locate WhatsApp. Tap on it.
4. Tap on Storage.
5. Tap the ‘Clear cache’ button.
6. Restart your device.

Fix 3: Reinstall WhatsApp

Your app could be faulty. That is why your contacts are not being synced. Uninstall it and download it anew. A fresh install may be all you need. Perhaps there’s also a new update available on PlayStore.

Follow these steps:

1. Launch PlayStore.
2. Type ‘WhatsApp’ into the search bar and tap the option when it appears in the results.
3. If there’s an ‘Update’ button, tap on it to download and install the new version of the app. Otherwise, proceed to Step 4.
4. Go to the list of apps on your Android device. To do this, swipe up from the bottom of your screen. When you locate WhatsApp, press and drag it to ‘Uninstall’ at the top of the screen. Then confirm the action.
5. Launch PlayStore and type ‘WhatsApp’ into the search bar. Then tap the option when it appears in the search results.
6. Tap ‘Install’ and wait for the app to be downloaded and installed.
7. Launch WhatsApp and enter your account details. Make sure to grant access to Contacts when the request pops up.

After you’ve synchronized your Android contacts with WhatsApp, you may run into a few common issues. Luckily, these are easily fixed.

Once you’ve synced your phone contacts with the messenger, you may find yourself in touch with some people that you don’t want to be in touch with. In this case, simply block the unwanted contacts. Here’s how:

• Go to the Privacy section.
• Tap Blocked Contacts.
• Click the Add button.
• Select the contact you want to block.

Another useful thing you can do once you’ve synced your phone contacts with your WhatsApp is set custom notifications for important contacts. This is very easy to do. Simply go to the person’s profile and select Custom Notifications.

As an Android user, you can now back up your entire chat history (including voice messages, photos and videos) to Google Drive. It’s a very handy way of making sure important conversations don’t get lost. Here’s how to enable the backup feature:

• Click the three dotted menu button.
• Go to Settings > Chats > Chat Backup.
• Select Backup.

You can also customize your backup options here. For instance, you can choose not to back up videos to save cloud space. To do this, you simply need to uncheck the “include videos” options.

Conclusion

WhatsApp is a very convenient tool that has made voice and video calling, chatting, and media sharing easy. Unlike most social media platforms where you have to search for usernames and even send a friend request before you can message anyone, WhatsApp automatically imports the contacts from your phonebook.

As long as the numbers have been used to create a WhatsApp account, you will find the users when you launch WhatsApp. But first, you have to give WhatsApp permission to access your phonebook.

In this article, we discussed how to sync your contacts to WhatsApp, how to manually add new contacts, and what to do when WhatsApp is not syncing your contacts or is only showing numbers instead of the names of your contacts. Please don’t hesitate to leave us a message if you have any questions or comments. We’ll be happy to hear from you.

Although WhatsApp is a great solution for sharing documents and other media like videos and audio files, its transfer capability is limited. The app does not serve if you wish to send very large files. For this reason, we suggest you use a dedicated file-sharing service such as FileWhopper.

Send your first file or folder and get a 50% discount for the second transfer of up to 5TB!

Complete Guide to Merging Contacts

Seeing double Contacts where there should be only one? The problem is not vision - you just have duplicate contacts. Avoid unnecessary trips to the optometrist with Contact Merge. We'll show you how to combine Contacts and their Conversations to get a holistic view of the customers in your workspace. We'll also explain how duplicate Contacts occur and the best practices to follow when merging them.

Merging Contacts: Dealing with Duplicate Contacts

Let's talk about duplicate contacts first. To understand the value of the Contact Merge tool, you need to know how duplicate profiles are created and detected on the respond.io platform, and why companies should merge contacts.

Common Cause of Duplicate Contacts

respond.io's main competitive advantage is that it connects companies with customers across any Channel. Every first incoming message from a channel - be it email, web chat, or a messaging app - creates a new contact, which is a practical way to build a contact list.

There are several reasons why Contacts access different channels. For example, impatient contacts will write to companies on several channels at the same time, hoping that one of them will be answered faster.

They can also initiate conversations on different channels depending on their convenience. They may prefer to use WhatsApp on mobile and web chat on desktop. This will create separate contact profiles.

Duplicate contacts detected by address or phone number reuse Email

So how does respond.io recognize duplicate contacts? The platform treats phone numbers and email addresses as unique. Reusing either of them alerts the platform to duplicate key properties of the two profiles.

Let's say a contact contacts a business on WhatsApp and Telegram. If both channels are registered to the same phone number, respond.io will detect matching contact properties.

Duplicate Contacts Problem

This brings us to the next question: Why should you merge duplicate Contacts? There are several reasons why you don't want duplicate contacts to be removed.

First, interacting with duplicate Contacts is an inefficient use of resources. Let's say a customer requests a sales promotion on both WhatsApp and Telegram. Reaching out to the same customer over and over again on every channel will cost you time and manpower.

If the profiles were merged, you would immediately notice that they asked the same question twice. The message that you received both messages and answered them only once indicates a high level of attention to customer service.

Another potential disadvantage of duplicate contacts is the increased risk of unintentional spam. For example, sending the same email to a contact multiple times can result in you being reported as spam, lowering your Quality Score on channels like WhatsApp.

Elegant contact merging solutions with respond.io

Contact management is a valuable piece of the operational puzzle for most companies. While many platforms allow users to merge contacts, respond.io's unique approach to merge contacts has a number of advantages.

Let's take a quick look at some of these benefits.

Merging contacts: Suggestions for merging contacts

Most platforms require users to manually search for or detect duplicate contacts. In contrast, respond.io does the hard work of alerting platform users to duplicate contacts and prompting them to merge them.

Contact Merge: Merge conversations across different channels

Contact Merge not only merges duplicate Contacts and their properties, but also merges all Channels, Messages, Events and Comments associated with them into a single profile.

Channel conversations are displayed chronologically on the messaging console in a user-friendly scrollable interface. This creates a complete overview of the contact and all of its interactions with the enterprise.

Contact Merge: Retains contact data after merging

Instead of storing only one property per field and automatically deleting the other data, respond. io retains the properties and channel connections for both contact profiles when merging.

You can select the channel on which the message will be sent to Contacts using the channel selector in the message composer.

Now that you know why you need to merge duplicate Contacts, we will tell you about the different methods of merging Contacts on the platform.

How to merge contacts on respond.io

Merge contacts can be done in certain modules by Users with appropriate access levels. You can merge multiple contacts, but only two profiles at a time.

Read on to learn how to merge Contacts in different modules.

Agents: Merging Contacts in the Messaging Module

Agents are usually the first in the contact service queue to get in touch. If duplicate contact properties are detected during an incoming call, the platform will prompt agents to merge.

The merge proposal will be listed on the Channels tab of the contact's profile in the messaging module. Agents can check the validity of the merge proposal and proceed with the merge if the contacts are indeed duplicates.

1.

On the Channels tab, scroll down the list of connected channels until you reach the Merge Offers section.

2.

Click on the suggested profile and check that it is a duplicate Contact. If both profiles belong to the same contact, initiate the merge by clicking the Merge icon next to the duplicate profile.

3.

Click on the appropriate buttons to confirm which key properties you want to keep as default if they are different in both profiles. For example, if each profile has a different email address, choose which one will be the primary email for the contact.

4.

Confirm the merging by clicking the Merge contact button.

Owners or Managers: Dashboard Contact Merge

Not all companies want agents to take responsibility for contact merging. Workspace owners or managers who prefer to handle contact merging themselves can do so at any time from the control panel.

1.

Scroll down the dashboard to the Merge Suggestions section to see if there are any proposed merges.

2.