I think at this point, portability is something that we all assumed when we go to change operators. We have spent many years behind us with the same phone number and it is very difficult to do without it both for our contacts and for related applications.
And it is that, although it is not ideal, there are applications that we can access with the telephone number and where we have data. One of them, perhaps the best known, is WhatsApp. The Meta app is strongly tied to our number, but… what if we want to change the number? Is our WhatsApp deleted, can they impersonate us or inadvertently read our conversations? We will see it.
WhatsApp has the solution if we cancel our phone number and change a new one
WhatsApp is an application that attracts a lot of interest among foreigners because basically we usually have our life in these messaging apps. Friends, family, even work. In short: a lot of private and sensitive information in many cases.
That’s why there are ways to protect WhatsApp (with our fingerprint, for example), but there are also measures that few people take and that are most interesting.
And it is that, the application itself has a security method that requires us to put a six-digit PIN code like two-step verification method each time we register our phone in WhatsApp. This is useful if you change phones. Once you implement this security method, you can change the associated PIN or email address to retrieve it.
To enable this security method, all you have to do is, in WhatsApp, click on the three upper vertical dots, select “Settings”, go to the “Account” tab and select the “Two-Step Verification” option . There, enter the six-digit PIN, confirm an email address… and that’s it.
However,and if you want to cancel your current phone number Why are you going to change lines or have private WhatsApp on a work mobile and want to migrate everything to a personal phone? In this same “Account” section, we have the solution.
And that’s it, there is an option which is ‘Change number’ which allows you to do just that. What this function does is:
- Transfer account information such as profile picture, name, description, settings from old phone, individual and group chats to a new number.
- Delete the WhatsApp account linked to the old number. Also, your contacts will no longer see this number in their contact lists.
Doing it is very simple and basically consists of entering the current number, the new one to which you want to migrate the account and activate the box to communicate the change to our contacts. You can do this for everyone, or dial contacts one by one so only the people you love know you have a new phone number.
And this, In addition to the obvious reasons such as not losing our WhatsApp, it has a security feature. And it is that, when we cancel a number, a few days pass during which this number remains in a kind of limbo, but after the required time the operator can reassign it.
It’s somewhat unlikely, but imagine what happens and a new user saves their number (which is the one you had before) in WhatsApp and accesses the data. Yes, we have the Drive backup measure in our Gmail account along with the 6-digit PIN that we created earlier, but it can happen.
So, as you see, In a few simple steps we can protect our current WhatsApp number, but also migrate to a new phone if we decide to change our number. In this way, you have all the guarantees that you will continue to be… you.
More information | WhatsApp Frequently Asked Questions
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