WhatsApp is making a massive change to the way it saves your contacts

WhatsApp is getting a built-in contact manager that lets you save contacts within the app so you don’t lose them if you switch phones.

WhatsApp typically relies on the smartphone address book it runs on to hold and manage contacts. But that can be a problem for users who lose their device and fail to back up their phone’s contacts, people who share phones, or those who manage multiple accounts with separate contacts on one device.

To start, you’ll be able to save contacts on WhatsApp Web and Windows and Meta says that you’ll “eventually” be able to do so on other linked devices. Contacts saved in WhatsApp use a new “privacy-preserving” storage technology called Identity Proof Linked Storage (IPLS) that Meta explains keeps names and…

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