Scores of smartphone users across the world are likely to be affected as popular messenger app WhatsApp will end support for a number of mobile platforms from December 31.
The messaging app will drop support for ‘BlackBerry OS’, ‘BlackBerry 10’, ‘Windows Phone 8.0’ and older platforms, from December 31, 2017.
“We will no longer actively develop for these platforms, some features may stop functioning at any time,” WhatsApp said on its FAQ section.
“These platforms don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future. If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer OS version, or to a newer Android running OS 4.0+, iPhone running iOS 7+, or Windows Phone 8.1+ so that you can continue using WhatsApp,” the company added.
WhatsApp said that it will not work on ‘Nokia S40’ after December 2018. Also, the app will stop functioning correctly on Android OS version 2.3.7 and older, after February 1, 2020.
Here’s how you can take a backup of your WhatsApp chat (for WP 8, BB and BB10 users)
Windows Phone: Your WhatsApp messages are automatically backed up and is saved to your OneDrive account. If you want to export a particular chat with a contact or group, choose the chat > top on more (three dots) > info > email chat history.
“It is not possible to attach chat media in the email at this time. Your chat history will be attached to the generated email as a .txt file (Windows Phone 8.1 and later) or pasted into the body of the email (Windows Phone 7 and 8.0),” WhatsApp explains on its website.
“You may not be able to email your entire chat history due to Windows Mail size restrictions. The only way to export newer messages would be to delete older messages and then email your chat history again.”
BlackBerry OS: Just like Windows Phone, select a chat with a group or contact > Select the BlackBerry icon > Email chat. “An email will be composed with your chat history attached as a .txt document,” according to WhatsApp.
BlackBerry 10: To export chat history, select a message with a contact or group > select email conversation > tap send.
