Transfer photos and data from your smartphone to Mac & PC with WhatsApp

WhatsApp can be used to transfer photos, PDFs or other files to other devices. How the transfer works between iPhone, Android smartphone, Mac and Windows PC, this Lifehack explains:

There are many ways to send files between your devices. For owners of Apple products AirDrop should be the first choice. Cross-platform, but it requires a different solution, for example, Dropbox, Google Drive or Slack. Not everyone uses the mentioned services, but sometimes a chat with themselves would be the simplest way. While Slack does, WhatsApp does not intend to send messages and files to itself to transfer something from one device to another. However, a trick is still to send compressed data:

WhatsApp chat with yourself - for file transfer

In the Lifehack one person alone uses the WhatsApp group chat . It can be used to transfer images, PDFs, videos, even Word documents and the like from device to device. No matter if it's Mac, PC, Android tablet, Windows smartphone, iPad or iPhone.

First of all, a personal chat must be set up once with a little trick:

1. Go to the Chats tab in WhatsApp (or WhatsApp Web) and tap on New Group on the top .
2. Now add a forewarned contact (he will get a notification, see below) and tap Next .
3. Enter a name for the chat and confirm with Create .
4. Now go to the group chat and tap on the bar at the top. Now the group info is displayed.
5. Touch the newly added person, then remove . Now you have a chat for you alone.

Attention: The invited person receives a message that they have been added to the group - including the group name. Best to warn her that she will be used for this lifehack - she can "reciprocate" in the same way.