How to Change Phone Number in Whatsapp

WhatsApp is now an indispensable application for anyone, to send free messages and also to call their contacts for free. WhatsApp binds to your phone number and can only be used with it, since in fact it is the tool with which we can be seen by other users of the service and with which we can authenticate with our account.
So what happens if, for any reason, you change your phone number? Once friends have been notified that they have changed their number, they will find our contact on Whatsapp with the new number, but if we wanted to move all WhatsApp data from the old to the new phone number we will have to carry out a wizard directly inside the WhatsApp app, so as not to lose the old chats.
Let’s see in this guide how to change phone number in WhatsApp on Android smartphone and iPhone, so that you can follow the correct procedure based on the device in use.

Change phone number in WhatsApp

The procedures on Android and iPhone are essentially identical, they change the menus on which we have to act in order to correctly change the number. Using this procedure we will keep our chats, our pictures and our profile data; for our interlocutors it is sufficient to update our telephone number with the new one, so that the chat is registered to us and not to another “unknown” telephone number (frequent problem when we suddenly change number without notifying anyone).

Note: the new telephone number must already be active and able to receive SMS and calls, in order to complete the procedure correctly. If we have only one phone with the old SIM, let’s make sure to insert the new SIM in a temporary phone immediately, so that we can immediately read the code or receive the confirmation call from WhatsApp.

Change WhatsApp number on Android

To change the phone number in WhatsApp on an Android smartphone, open the messaging app, tap the three dots at the top right (in the main menu, not in a chat), let’s take the path Settings -> Accounts and select the item Change number.

We press on the button Forward, then enter the old phone number and the new number in the appropriate fields provided by the app. Once confirmed, we await the arrival of the SMS code on the new number, which we will enter in the app to confirm the number change. If after 5 minutes we do not receive any SMS messages, we can press the buttons Reinvia SMS to try to send the code again via message or on Call me to receive the code via an international call (to whom we will have to answer: a recorded voice will dictate the code to use in the app). Once the change has been made, we turn off the phone and place the new SIM inside it, so that we can continue to use our WhatsApp chats without problems.

We can check if the new number has been correctly received by WhatsApp by taking us to the path Settings -> Accounts, by tapping on our name and checking in Info and telephone number if there is a new mobile number to use from now on.

NOTE: if we immediately insert the new SIM into the phone and open WhatsApp, the app itself will ask us to register the new number to continue using the account; we advise you to act separately using two telephones, in order to have greater control over the procedure and to avoid errors or problems in the transfer.

Change WhatsApp number on iPhone

To change the WhatsApp number on the iPhone, open the app, tap the icon at the bottom right Settings, let’s open the menu Account and finally tap on Change number to start the procedure.

The procedure is practically identical to that seen on Android smartphones: in the welcome screen, press on Forward at the top right and fill in the fields with the old number (in International prefix and old telephone number) and the new number (in International prefix and new telephone number). We confirm the changes and await the arrival of the new SMS code on the new phone number, which we will insert into the app to complete the transfer. If we don’t receive anything within 5 minutes, we can always use the button Call me to receive a call with a recorded voice (which will dictate the activation code) or press on Reinvia SMS to try to send the code again via SMS.

At the end of the transfer, we check that the new number is correctly registered in our account by taking us back to the Settings of WhatsApp, click on the name and check the field Telephone number to see if the right number is present.

NOTE: even with iPhone we recommend using two phones to make the transfer correctly and using the new SIM in the iPhone only after having already changed the phone number associated with the account.

Conclusions

Changing your phone number in WhatsApp is important, since only through it the company recognizes the account we are already using as “ours”, also keeping the related chats, related messages, calls and all other information. If, on the other hand, we immediately install the WhatsApp app and use the new phone number on it, we will create a new account and lose the ability to transfer our old chats. The phone number is also essential to restore the WhatsApp backup via Google Drive or iCloud, as seen in our guide on How automatic and manual Whatsapp Backup works.

If we want to transfer the entire WhatsApp account from one phone to another, we recommend that you read the guide on How to transfer Whatsapp from one phone to another or to another number.
If, on the other hand, we need to recover deleted messages from WhatsApp backup, we can proceed by reading our article on how Recover deleted Whatsapp messages and restore backups.