​

whatsapp-rust

​

Key features

​

Authentication

• QR code pairing - Scan QR code from your phone to authenticate
• Pair code linking - Link using phone number with 8-digit code
• Persistent sessions - Automatic reconnection with session management

​

Messaging

• End-to-end encryption - Full Signal Protocol implementation
• One-on-one and group chats - Send and receive messages in any chat type
• Message editing and reactions - Edit sent messages and add reactions
• Quoting/replying - Reply to specific messages with context
• Delivery receipts - Track delivery, read, and played status

​

Media handling

• Upload and download - Support for images, videos, documents, GIFs, and audio
• Album messages - Send grouped media albums (multiple images/videos in a single bubble)
• Automatic encryption - Transparent encryption/decryption for all media

​

Groups and communities

• Group management - Create, manage, invite, membership approval, and subgroup linking
• Community support - Create communities, link/unlink subgroups, query participants
• Invite links - Generate, reset, and join via invite codes
• Membership controls - Approval mode, member add mode, admin promotion/demotion

​

Newsletters

• Create and join - Create newsletters, join by JID or invite code
• Send messages - Plaintext messages and emoji reactions
• Live updates - Subscribe to real-time reaction count changes
• Message history - Fetch newsletter messages with pagination

​

Status updates

• Text, image, and video - Post status updates with background colors and fonts
• Privacy controls - Send to all contacts, allow lists, or deny lists
• Revocation - Delete posted status updates

​

Contacts

• Phone number lookup - Batch check if numbers are on WhatsApp
• Profile pictures - Fetch preview or full-size profile pictures
• User info - Get LID, status text, business status, and picture IDs

​

Presence and chat state

• Online/offline status - Set your presence status
• Typing indicators - Show composing, recording, and paused states
• Blocking - Block and unblock contacts, query blocklist

​

Chat actions

• Archive/pin/mute - Organize chats with archive, pin, and mute actions
• Star messages - Star and unstar individual messages
• App state sync - Actions sync across all linked devices

​

Profile

• Push name - Set your display name with app state sync
• Status text - Update your “about” text
• Profile picture - Set or remove your profile picture

​

Privacy

• Privacy settings - Fetch and set last seen, online, profile, status, and group add visibility
• Disappearing messages - Set default disappearing message duration
• Read receipts - Control read receipt visibility

​

Architecture

• Runtime agnostic - Pluggable async runtime, transport, HTTP client, and storage via trait abstractions
• Modular design - Swap any component (Tokio, SQLite, ureq) without changing application code
• WASM-ready - Core protocol library (wacore) has zero runtime dependencies, enabling WebAssembly targets
• SQLite included - Default storage backend with bundled SQLite, easily swappable

​

Getting started

​

Project structure

whatsapp-rust/
├── src/                          # Main client library + binary
├── wacore/                       # Platform-agnostic core (zero runtime deps)
│   ├── binary/                   # WhatsApp binary protocol
│   ├── libsignal/                # Signal Protocol implementation
│   ├── appstate/                 # App state management
│   ├── noise/                    # Noise Protocol handshake
│   └── derive/                   # Derive macros
├── waproto/                      # Protocol Buffers definitions
├── storages/sqlite-storage/      # SQLite backend
├── transports/tokio-transport/   # Tokio WebSocket transport
├── http_clients/ureq-client/     # HTTP client for media
├── tests/e2e/                    # End-to-end test suite
└── examples/                     # Benchmark examples

​

Acknowledgements

• whatsmeow - Go implementation
• Baileys - TypeScript implementation