WhatsApp Develops Birthday Reminder Feature to Notify Users of Contacts' Birthdays

WhatsApp is developing a new feature aimed at enhancing the daily use of sending birthday greetings. According to WABetaInfo, the app will soon display upcoming birthdays of contacts and send notifications directly within WhatsApp. This feature, discovered in the Android beta version 2.26.27.3, includes a dedicated section showing upcoming birthdays and will alert users on the day itself, allowing them to quickly open a chat and send congratulations.

This new birthday reminder is separate from WhatsApp's recent regulatory-driven request for users to enter their birthdates, which is intended solely for age verification in certain U.S. states and is not visible to other users. The birthday notifications will rely on birthdate information already saved in the phone's local contacts. If a contact’s birthday is not stored, no reminder will be shown, making the feature’s usefulness dependent on how many birthdays users have saved.

Since the data is pulled directly from the phone’s address book, no new privacy mechanisms are required. Users control which birthdates are saved and can choose not to store a contact’s birthday to avoid receiving reminders. Currently, the feature remains under development and is not yet available even to beta testers. WhatsApp has not announced an official release date for the feature’s rollout to all users.