WhatsApp is the most-used instant messaging application in the world, and many people use multiple accounts of the app to interact with their professional and personal contacts. So if you’re one of them and want to know how you can run two WhatsApp accounts on one phone to keep your personal and professional lives separate, you’ve come to the right place. Here, we will show you how you can run two WhatsApp accounts on the same device at the same time without having to log in and out of the service multiple times.
Run Two WhatsApp Accounts on One Phone Simultaneously
It is worth noting that some of the methods we’re about to describe below work not just for WhatsApp, but for a vast number of other apps that do not typically allow running multiple instances on the same device. However, you’ll need a dual-SIM phone for this trick because the different accounts with different phone numbers need to be validated from the same device. Personally, I’ve run Uber and Gmail this way alongside WhatsApp, and now I’ll show you how you can, too.
Method 1: Using Built-in Features in Your Phone
Many Android phones come with built-in app-cloning features that enable users to run multiple accounts of the same app on their phone. OnePlus (Parallel Apps), Xiaomi (Dual Apps), Realme (Clone Apps), Vivo (App Clone) and Samsung (Dual Messenger) devices ship with the functionality out-of-the-box, so here we’ll see how we can use that built-in feature to run two WhatsApp accounts on one phone.
Note: We will use a Xiaomi device for the purpose of this demonstration, but the process will be relatively similar on devices from the other aforementioned brands as well.
- Go to Settings (lever icon) from the pull-down menu. Now scroll down to ‘Dual Apps’ and tap on that.
- In the following screen, toggle on the apps you want to clone. You may be asked for permission to create a cloned Google Services account. Tap on ‘Turn on’ to allow.
- Once the toggle is turned on, you’ll get a message saying ‘Icon added to home screen’. The new icon will be clearly marked as a cloned app, as seen below.
Method 2: Using Third-Party Utilities
While the aforementioned method is the easiest way to run two WhatsApp accounts on one phone, many Android devices do not ship with a built-in feature to enable that. For those devices, you’ll need to use a third-party utility to run multiple instances of the same app on your device.
- Download ‘Parallel Space’ from the Play Store (Free). Once you run it, you’ll be presented with a list of all the apps that can be cloned by the utility.
Note: If the app is not listed on the Play Store for your device, get the latest APK from APK Mirror (Free).
- Now pick the apps you want to clone and hit ‘Add to Parallel space’. As you can see, I picked 3 apps – WhatsApp, Gmail and Uber.
- From then on, every time you want to run the second WhatsApp account, go into Parallel Space and tap on the WhatsApp icon to fire up the app. You can use the first account as usual by tapping on the original shortcut on the home screen or the app drawer.
The developers of Parallel Space have made it extremely difficult of late to download the app from the Play Store, but it is still the best option that’s compatible with most apps. However, there are multiple apps on the Play Store that offer similar functionality. So if you want to stick to options from the Play Store, you can check out the best Parallel Space alternatives to pick your favorite.
Method 3: Using WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp allows users to natively run two accounts on the same phone, provided the second one is for WhatsApp Business. This allows you to run two instances of the service on the same device without having to go through the hoops. What’s more, this is the only method that works if you want to run two WhatsApp accounts on iPhone.
WhatsApp Business is a separate app and is free for now, although, Facebook is reportedly planning to start charging a fee for it in the coming days. Be that as it may, for now at least, you can just download WhatsApp Business from the Play Store (Free) or the App Store (Free) and set it up with your second number as usual to run two WhatsApp accounts on iPhone or Android.
The only downside is that you’ll have to register as a business account and your contacts will be bombarded with reminders every other day that yours is a business account and not a personal one. If that’s not too much of a botheration, using this alternative method is a great way to get this done.
Run Two WhatsApp Accounts on iPhone or Android
While method 3 may be exclusive to WhatsApp, it is the only way to do this on iOS. The first two methods, on the other hand, should work for most apps, but only on Android. You can also run two WhatsApp accounts on one phone using unofficial WhatsApp mods. However, they come with no guarantee about privacy and security and can also result in your WhatsApp account getting banned, which is why, we’re not going to discuss that in this tutorial.
Either way, now that you know of at least three ways to run multiple instances of the same app on your phone, give it a go and let us know if it’s working as smoothly on your device as it is on mine.
