wojkaltech/whatsapplegacy

WhatsAppLegacy is a project that lets very old Android phones, going back to Android 2.3, connect to WhatsApp through a simple webview interface. Modern WhatsApp apps no longer work on such old devices, so this project works around that by running a small self hosted server that does the heavy lifting on your behalf. The server, written in Node.js, uses the whatsapp-web.js library to log into a real WhatsApp account and expose that connection through a set of simple web addresses. The old phone's webview then talks to this server to fetch chats, load message history, and send or receive messages, rather than connecting to WhatsApp directly. One of the more detailed parts of the README covers how the project handles emojis. Old Android versions before 4.1 cannot render modern emoji characters, so the server automatically converts common emojis like a laughing face or a heart into classic text emoticons such as :-D or less than three, and does the reverse when you type an emoticon on the old device. Devices running Android 4.1 or later skip this conversion entirely and receive native emoji characters instead. Photos, voice notes, and unsupported characters are shown as plain text labels like photo or recording so the interface does not break on devices that cannot display that content. Group chats are supported, including showing which group member sent each message. Setting up the server involves installing Node.js and a few npm packages, then creating and running a server.js file with the code provided in the README. This project requires you to run your own server continuously and does not work as a standalone app, so it is best suited to someone comfortable setting up and maintaining a small Node.js service.