ZapFast

WhatsApp, native and fast.
A lightweight WhatsApp app for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Download · Getting started · User guide · Contribute

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.

Watch ZapFast in action

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, fetch older messages from your phone as you scroll, and export locally saved chat history as text or a ZIP with downloaded attachments.
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

Platform	Installation
macOS	brew install --cask crmne/tap/zapfast, or download the Mac app.
Arch Linux	yay -S zapfast-bin
Windows	Choose your build on the Download page.
Other Linux	Find Nix, AppImage, and other options on the Download page.
From source	Follow Getting started for dependencies and commands.

Link your phone

1. Open ZapFast. It shows a QR code.
2. 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.
3. 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.

You want to…	Read
Know what ZapFast does and does not do yet	What is ZapFast?
Link your phone or build from source	Getting started
Learn messages, stickers, polls, and shortcuts	Using ZapFast
Find settings, stored files, encryption, the app lock, and updates	Settings and files
Make your own theme	Making a theme
Understand what stays on this computer	How it links
Understand account risk	Account safety
Report a bug or propose a feature	Read Contributing, then use the issue forms.

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