Meet with Official WhatsApp Desktop App for Windows and Mac
Last year WhatsApp has launched WhatsApp Web, by which you can WhatsApp from your desktop by opening a web browser. But Some people including I, felt its very annoying to do WhatsApp via a web browser as its messed up with your other tab. Finally, WhatsApp has realised this problem and launched official WhatsApp Desktop App for Windows and Mac OS. Now you don’t need to open a web browser, you have a dedicated WhatsApp App to do WhatsApp on your Windows PC or Mac.
Know about WhatsApp Desktop App
Installing Desktop App for WhatsApp is quite simple. Before download make sure you are using either Windows 8+ or Mac OS 10.9+. But I am pretty sure that it should work on Windows 7. Do comment if you are using WhatsApp Desktop App on your Windows 7 PC. Once you have downloaded this official WhatsApp Desktop app on your computer just run it.
To configure it you need to scan the QR code from your phone like WhatsApp web. Like WhatsApp Web, you need to keep your Mobile connected via the internet to use WhatsApp Desktop app as its sync with WhatsApp on your mobile device. WhatsApp claims that with this WhatsApp Desktop software you will get desktop notification and some new keyboard shortcuts. But if you are using WhatsApp web via Google Chrome browser then you will also get the desktop notification like the Facebook Desktop notification.
Keyboard Shortcuts to do WhatsApp on Desktop
Here are the Keyboard shortcuts that you can use on Windows
Ctrl + E: Archive chat
Ctrl + Shift + M: Mute Chat
Ctrl + Shift + U: Change read status
Ctrl + Backspace: Delete chat
Ctrl + F: Search
Ctrl + N: Start new chat
Ctrl + Shift + N: Start new group chat
Note: For the Mac, you need to replace Ctrl with the Command button, but everything else remains the same.
Verdict
WhatsApp Desktop app is nice but not much impressive as there is no major difference with WhatsApp Web. Why someone would download a 61MB file for nothing. If you really want to do WhatsApp outside the web browser then Franz is the best option. Not only WhatsApp, you can do Facebook, Skype and many more with one messenger. Moreover, in Franz, you can add multiple WhatsApp or Facebook account and other.
So before trying this Desktop app try Franz for a single time, I am sure that you will switch back to Franz after using WhatsApp Desktop app.
Download
Download Desktop App for WhatsApp here
How would I be able to add my existing whatsapp account to the Franz app?
Read more about Franz here http://sh039.global.temp.domains/~cyberkey/franz-unified-chat-messenger-facebook-whatsapp/