Whether you’re sending a business colleague a full contact card, or simply want to send one friend the number of another, learning how to share a contact on WhatsApp is one of the quickest and easiest ways to do that.
To learn how just follow our easy step-by-step guides below. For any additional information, or if you have any more unanswered queries, please see our FAQs at the end of this article.
Table of Contents
- On your mobile or tablet device (provided you have a contact book or phonebook on it, as well as WhatsApp installed and signed into), open up the Contact/Phonebook application (where all your saved contacts are found)
- Next, scroll and locate the contact whose information you wish to share on WhatsApp
- Open up the contact card of that contact and at the bottom or top of your screen you should see an option to ‘Share’, tap this
- If you do not immediately see the option to ‘Share’, try hitting the menu button for more options
- Now, from the share options, you’ll be presented with a choice. “Share the contact as a vCard file (VCF) or as Text”. For the purposes of this tutorial, select VCF
- Now, from the pop-up options for sharing, locate and tap on the WhatsApp icon
- This will direct you to WhatsApp and a list of your frequently and most recently contacted – either select your chosen recipient from the list, or search for them (tap the magnifying glass in the top-right corner) and then choose them from the search bar
- Once you’ve tapped on the contact you want to share the VCF with, it will automatically be sent through to them.
- On your mobile or tablet device (provided you have a contact book or phonebook on it, as well as WhatsApp installed and signed into), open up the Contact/Phonebook application (where all your saved contacts are found)
- Next, scroll and locate the contact whose information you wish to share on WhatsApp
- Open up the contact card of that contact and at the bottom or top of your screen you should see an option to ‘Share’, tap this
- If you do not immediately see the option to ‘Share’, try hitting the menu button for more options
- Now, from the share options, you’ll be presented with a choice. “Share the contact as a vCard file (VCF) or as Text”. For the purposes of this tutorial, select Text
- Now, from the pop-up options for sharing, locate and tap on the WhatsApp icon
- This will direct you to WhatsApp and a list of your frequently and most recently contacted – either select your chosen recipient from the list, or search for them (tap the magnifying glass in the top-right corner) and then choose them from the search bar
- Once you’ve tapped on the contact you want to share the VCF with, it will take you to the chat room, where the contact’s details are ready to be sent – you can now personalise them with a message to your chosen recipient if you so wish. Once ready to send, hit that green ‘Send’ arrow to the bottom-right
How to send a contact’s number only on WhatsApp (Android/iOS)
- On your mobile or tablet device (provided you have a contact book or phonebook on it, as well as WhatsApp installed and signed into), open up the Contact/Phonebook application (where all your saved contacts are found)
- Next, scroll and locate the contact whose information you wish to share on WhatsApp
- Open up the contact, and then tap and hold their number
- From the pop-up menu, select ‘Copy’
- Now, navigate out of Contacts/Phonebook and into WhatsApp
- Locate the person with whom you wish to save this contact’s copied number, and open up a chat with them
- Now, in the message bar at the bottom, tap and hold. From the pop-up options, choose ‘Paste’ – the number you copied will be pasted in, but you’ll see it’s the number only, without the name or any other details attached.
- Personalise the message if you want, by writing whatever you like alongside the number, and once ready to send, hit that green ‘Send’ arrow to the bottom-right
And there you have it! However you want to share a contact on WhatsApp – whether as a handy VCF, as text, or just the number – you can learn to do so in no time at all with our easy-to-follow instructions.
For any additional information, see our FAQs below.
Frequently asked questions
WhatsApp is a phenomenally easy-to-use and accessible, end-to-end encrypted messaging service owned by Facebook. Millions of people all around the world use it every day to keep in contact with friends and family, as well as contact and make orders or reservations with businesses, and even speak with colleagues.
As such, there’s every chance you’ll find you want to share one of your contact’s information with somebody you are connected with on WhatsApp. Maybe the person in question doesn’t have or use WhatsApp, and you need to share their contact details with someone who does.
Whatever your reason, we’re here to help show you exactly how you can share a contact on WhatsApp – usually with just a few taps of a button.
Since WhatsApp relies on you having someone’s actual mobile phone number in order to contact them, presumably the majority of your WhatsApp contacts will already be saved in your phonebook.
Thus, when you ‘share a contact’ on WhatsApp, all you’re likely doing is sharing that person’s number with someone else on the app, so that they can then contact them (whether on or off WhatsApp, it doesn’t matter).
The only thing to keep in mind is that sometimes you might have your friends’ or family’s physical addresses, email addresses, or other information about them stored in your phonebook/phone contacts, alongside their names and phone numbers. If this is the case, then when you share that contact with someone on WhatsApp, the recipient will see all of this information.
We recommend making sure you’re only sending information you (and the person whose information it is) is happy to share.
Sure! You can delete any message you’ve sent on WhatsApp, either for only you to see or for everyone, in which case the unwanted message is removed permanently from the chat. All you have to do is find the shared contact details message, tap and hold on it, and then select ‘Delete’ > ‘Delete for everyone’.
However, just keep in mind that if the person you shared the contact with has already made note of the details, or saved that contact to their phone, then deleting the message will not affect their access to the person’s details which you have shared.
