Why are my contacts not displayed in WhatsApp for BlackBerry10?

In order to get the best experience from WhatsApp, we strongly recommend that you allow WhatsApp access to your phone's contacts. Here are a few things to know about using WhatsApp with your phone's contacts.

Accessing my phone's contacts

If you initially denied WhatsApp access to your phone's contacts, you can enable access by going to the BlackBerry 10 Permission Settings:

1. From your home screen, swipe down from the top edge of the screen.
2. Go to Settings > Security & Privacy > Application Permissions > WhatsApp.
3. Make sure Contacts is set to "On".
4. Reboot your phone to ensure any changes take effect.

WhatsApp should automatically detect the contacts from your address book. To manually refresh your contacts:

1. Open WhatsApp > Tap Tab Menu > Contacts.
2. In the Contacts screen, tap More > Refresh Contacts.

Sources of Contacts

If you have granted the app permission to use your contacts, but WhatsApp is still not detecting your contacts, or is displaying phone numbers without names, your contacts may be saved in a source that WhatsApp does not have access to. WhatsApp should be using the contact info (such as First name, Last name) from the contacts that are saved in the SIM, local, or Google/CardDav accounts on your phone. The easiest way to resolve this problem is to:

1. Open Contacts from your phone’s home screen.
2. Swipe down from the top of the screen > Tap Settings.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen > Tap Copy Contacts from Device to SIM Card.

Note: Third party apps, such as WhatsApp, do not have access to contact details that are saved in social network accounts, such as Facebook or LinkedIn. It is possible, for example, to have a contact in your phone that does not have a first name or last name, but does have a phone number. This is particularly common with contacts that are linked to social network accounts, so make sure to save your contacts locally on the smartphone.

WhatsApp and BES-configured phones

If your BlackBerry 10 device is configured with BES, you will likely have contacts from the "Work" profile, which WhatsApp is not able to access. Similar to contacts from social network accounts, please ensure that your contact details are saved to the SIM card, locally to your "Personal" profile, or to a CardDav account, such as a Google account. To give WhatsApp access to such contacts, please contact your BES admin.

Summary

If contacts in your address book don't synchronize properly with WhatsApp contacts, then the possible reasons for that are:

• WhatsApp doesn’t have the permission to read your smartphone’s address book.
• Contacts are not saved properly in the SIM, local, or Google/CardDav accounts on your phone.
• Contacts in BES-configured phones are restricted.

You can learn more about how WhatsApp uses your phone's contacts from this FAQ article.

Cheers,
WhatsApp Support Team