ZapFast is a WhatsApp client written in Rust with
egui and fastframe, the
framework behind a family of native desktop apps. It links to your phone as a
companion device through
whatsapp-rust and has no browser
engine. In our Linux test it opens in under a second and uses about 200 MB of
idle RAM, against 1.13 GB for WhatsApp Web.
See the measurements.
The interface is available in English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional),
French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish,
and Turkish.
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2bf86b54-45fc-4add-8de7-c426c3cdad9b
Features · Install · Link your phone · Help
Your chats, on your desktop
| Feature | What you can do |
|---|
| Messages | Send formatted text, replies, edits, reactions, forwards, pictures, files, stickers, GIFs, polls, and voice messages. |
| Media in the chat | Play voice messages, videos, round video messages, GIFs, and animated stickers in place. |
| Your history | Keep your chats in an encrypted archive on this computer, and fetch older messages from your phone as you scroll. |
| Several numbers | Link more than one WhatsApp number and switch between them in one window. |
| Desktop controls | Use keyboard shortcuts, select and copy text across messages, and stay linked in the tray with notifications. |
| Themes | Choose light, dark, system appearance, or custom colours. On Omarchy, follow your desktop theme. |
| Privacy | Hide locked chats behind a code, or the whole window behind an app lock. Nothing goes to a server of ours. |
Install
Link your phone
- Open ZapFast. It shows a QR code.
- On your phone, open WhatsApp, then Settings, Linked devices,
Link a device, and scan the code. Or click Link with phone number
and enter the eight-character code on your phone.
- Your recent chats arrive from the phone. Older messages follow as you
scroll up.
The link survives restarts, and your phone does not need to stay online to
read what ZapFast has already stored. See
Getting started for the full
walkthrough and How it links for the
details.
Guides and help
The complete guide lives at zapfast.rocks.
Contributing
Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening an issue or pull
request. To look at the interface without a WhatsApp account, run:
cargo run --features demo -- --demo
AGENTS.md describes the architecture, DEMO.md the
demo pages, screenshots, and recorded tours, and
PACKAGING.md releases and packages.
Native notifications use Fastframe on Linux, macOS and Windows. ZapFast keeps
its account/chat routing, privacy settings, notification limits and sound
previews. Clicks open the announced message; reading a chat withdraws its
tracked notifications. OS permissions and notification presentation still apply.
More native apps
Want Spotify just as fast and native? Spotifast
is ZapFast's sibling. Both are built on
fastframe.
Acknowledgements
ZapFast uses whatsapp-rust,
egui, fastframe, the
Inter typeface and Noto Color Emoji (OFL), and
Lucide icons (ISC), also used for the chat wallpaper
doodles. The notification sounds are Pidgin's, under the
GPL-2.0 (see assets/sounds/).
ZapFast is an unofficial client and is not affiliated with WhatsApp or Meta.
Using an unofficial client may be against WhatsApp's terms of service and
could get an account suspended. Use it at your own risk. WhatsApp is a
trademark of WhatsApp LLC.
Licensed under the MIT License.
Star history
