Link Sync (first day after connecting)
At a glance
| Location | Settings → WhatsApp → Health → Link sync card (and the syncing banner at the top of the inbox) |
| Plan | All plans, including the free tier |
| Related features | 3 |
After you link a WhatsApp number, Spun paces the first day on purpose. New messages, your chats and their history, and status updates are there right away and are never delayed. Profile photos load gradually: a newly linked device that fetches every profile at once is what WhatsApp treats as unusual, so Spun takes it slowly to keep your number in good standing. Timeline for a new link: "Now: your chats and history"; after the first few minutes (about 10) profile photos start arriving, a few at a time with random gaps, beginning with the chats on screen ("From [time]: profile photos"); "Contact names: if only numbers arrive, import them from your phone"; and everything else is in within 24 hours ("By [time]: everything"). Photos for chats you have not scrolled to yet keep filling in afterwards in limited daily batches, never all at once. Reconnecting a number that has been working normally in Spun is shorter: about a 2-minute pause and caught up within the hour, and the screen says "Reconnected. Catching up." A reconnect gets the full first day when the number is new to Spun, or when WhatsApp logged it out or restricted it in the last 30 days; a short drop that recovers without a new QR scan does not restart anything. Only connected time counts: if WhatsApp disconnects during the first day (phone off, no internet, the link dropped), the clock stops where it is and picks up from the same point when the number reconnects, however long that takes, so a line that dropped an hour after linking and comes back a week later still gets the rest of its first day. While it is disconnected the banner reads "Syncing is paused while WhatsApp is disconnected. It picks up where it left off once you reconnect." and the timeline says "After you reconnect" instead of a time. This pacing is not optional for customers: there is no setting to skip it, and Expert mode in Sending safety does not lift it. It never holds back a message you send, by hand or in a campaign. Two things started by a person still follow the pace because WhatsApp counts them as bulk activity: checking whether phone numbers are on WhatsApp, and adding many people to a group at once. If such a check is early, part of it waits and Spun shows "WhatsApp is still syncing after linking. The rest of this check continues on its own in about N min." Nothing is dropped; it finishes by itself. Spun also tries to bring in your contacts, but many WhatsApp accounts send only phone numbers, not the names you saved, so contacts may show as numbers only. To get your contacts the way you named them on your phone, import them from your phone (Contacts → Import, a CSV exported from iPhone or Google Contacts); it takes a few minutes and is safe to do at any time. The link /?open=import-contacts opens the same import directly, with the CSV help already expanded on the tab for your phone. If the manual contact pull finds nothing yet, Spun says "Your phone has not sent its contacts to Spun yet. To get them with the names you saved, import them from your phone. It takes a few minutes and is safe to do at any time." Once Spun has finished reading your contacts, the banner says it definitely: if WhatsApp sent no saved names it reads "Your WhatsApp sent phone numbers only. Import your contacts to see the names you saved." with "Import contacts", even after the first day has ended, until you dismiss it; if names did arrive, the banner drops its names line. Keep your phone connected to the internet during the first day, because contact names come from your phone. What you see: after the scan the screen says "Connected. Your WhatsApp is syncing." with the timeline, an "Import contacts" button that opens the inbox with the contacts import already open, and "Open inbox", which works straight away (the screen also continues by itself after a few seconds); a banner at the top of the inbox reads "Photos are loading gradually, everything by [time]. Contact names may arrive as numbers only." (times in Israel time) with "Get names" (opens the contacts import), "Details" (the timeline and "Why we pace this") and a dismiss button, and it comes back once when the next stage starts; chats without a photo show initials until the photo arrives; a chat with no messages may read "Loading history" during the first few minutes ("New messages still arrive right away."); and Settings → WhatsApp → Health has a "Link sync" card showing the stage, what has arrived and what is next. The stages are "Getting started", "Loading profile photos", "Loading contact names", "Finishing photos and status" and "Done". After the ramp the card reads "Everything has synced." until two days after the link, then disappears. At any time, a WhatsApp chat whose messages Spun has not stored yet says "History not loaded" in the chat list (or "History not loaded, WhatsApp offline" while WhatsApp is disconnected) instead of "no WhatsApp yet", and opening it shows "Loading history", or "History not loaded yet" while WhatsApp is offline; "no WhatsApp yet" is kept for people who have no WhatsApp chat at all. A chat that WhatsApp has reported but whose messages have not arrived yet (for example one with unread messages and nothing stored) says "Waiting for WhatsApp to sync" in the chat list instead; its messages arrive on their own.
How to use
- Scan the QR code as usual (see WhatsApp Setup).
- Press "Open inbox"; your chats and history are already there.
- Leave your phone connected to the internet so contact names can arrive. If your contacts show as numbers only, press "Import contacts" on the screen after the scan or "Get names" in the inbox banner and import them from your phone.
- Follow progress in the inbox banner ("Details") or on the "Link sync" card in Settings → WhatsApp → Health.
- If a WhatsApp number check or a large group add says it will continue on its own, leave it; it finishes by itself. There is nothing to switch on or off.
Related features
FAQ
- Why do profile photos load slowly after connecting?
- Why does my history load gradually after connecting?
- Why do my contacts show numbers instead of names after connecting?
- How long does the sync take after I link WhatsApp?
- Can I skip the syncing wait?
- Does Expert mode make the sync faster?
- Why does my WhatsApp number check say it will continue later?
- Why did the contact pull find no contacts?
- What is the Link sync card?
- Why does a reconnect take less time than a new link?