WhatsApp’s native app for Windows 11 is being killed off in favour of a new “app” that opens web.whatsapp.com in a Chromium container. According to a new hint/alert within WhatsApp, this change begins rolling out starting November 5, 2025. Meta won’t explicitly confirm it’s switching to Chromium, as that would confuse regular users.

Meta’s plans to dump WhatsApp’s native code in favour of a Chromium-based wrapper shouldn’t surprise anyone, as we saw this coming earlier this year. In our tests, Windows Latest previously observed that WhatsApp beta had already moved to Chromium-based for some users, and now the stable client will also make the switch.

As first spotted by Windows Latest on Friday morning, the migration means you’ll be logged out of WhatsApp and asked to log in again.

As you can see in the above screenshot, Meta quietly updated WhatsApp on Windows 11 with a nudge that says changes are coming to the desktop client.

WhatsApp’s alert for November 5 won’t say “we’re switching to Chromium” because most users don’t know what that means, and it can cause confusion. Instead, Meta calls it an “upgrade” and says users will be logged out. That doesn’t happen when apps are typically updated.

Users are being logged out because WhatsApp is switching to a new framework, which is Chromium (Electron), and a move like this will reset auth/session.

“You’ll be logged out to complete the update, and you’ll need your phone to log back in,” Meta warns. “Some changes are coming to WhatsApp for Windows. Channels will be available and you’ll be able to do more with Status and Communities.”

This means WhatsApp will soon feel like a web browser and use more memory than ever, thanks to the Chromium stack.

Starting November 5, you’ll be asked to log in again on any day, and up to 1 year of chat history will sync from your phone.

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