dan_30 DA
@dan_30
WordPress Oct 08, 2026

WhatsApp chat button on WordPress opens the web version on desktop

Using a click-to-chat plugin on a wordpress site. On phones it opens the app fine, but on desktop it always lands on WhatsApp Web, which half our customers never log into. Can I force it to use the other link format so the desktop app opens instead?
whatsapp chat button
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noahd Nov 12, 2026
dan_30
if it doesn't open anything useful at all, check the number format. it has to be the full international number with no +, spaces, brackets or leading zero, otherwise whatsapp says the number shared via url is invalid.
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gusp Oct 14, 2026
dan_30
That's normal for wa.me links, on desktop they hand off to the browser page which then offers the app or WhatsApp Web. You can link desktop visitors to whatsapp://send?phone=yournumber instead and it opens the installed app directly, but if they don't have the desktop app it just does nothing, and a site can't reliably detect whether it's installed. Most people leave wa.me alone for that reason. Some chat plugins let you show the number or a QR code on desktop instead, which is honestly the cleaner option.
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