You can now reserve a WhatsApp username and stop sharing your phone number

WhatsApp on Monday opened the door for users to reserve a username, the first step in a change that will eventually let people message on the app without handing over their phone number.

The company said reservations open this week, while the feature itself will arrive later in the year through a gradual rollout.

The early window is meant to give people a chance to claim the handle they want before the launch proper, with more than three billion users on the app and a lot of names that overlap.

Here is what it will mean in practice. Once usernames go live, the people you chat with will see your username instead of your number. There is no directory to scroll and no search, so nobody can look you up. To start a conversation, a person needs your exact username.

WhatsApp is also adding an optional username key, a short code that someone must know before they can message you for the first time, giving you another layer of control over who reaches you.

For Ghana, where WhatsApp is less an app than the country's nervous system, the change lands on a real nerve. Think about how quickly a number passed around one group becomes a number on twenty. A username lets a vendor put a single handle on a flyer, a bio or a live video, and keep the actual number, the one tied to mobile money and to a Ghana Card, out of public view.

For anyone who has been added to a group they never asked to join, or chased by an unknown contact after sharing a number once, that is not a small thing.

It also gives small businesses and creators something they have not had on WhatsApp before: a stable, shareable identity that can match the name they already use on Instagram and Facebook, since the handle has to be free across Meta's apps to be claimed.

A few caveats before anyone gets carried away. You will still need a phone number to use WhatsApp itself, at least for now. The rollout is gradual and global, so a reserved name does not mean the feature is switched on, and Ghanaian users may wait a while before it reaches their phones.