Receiving submissions via WhatsApp

Contributors can submit memories through WhatsApp, a familiar and easy option for people around the world.

How it works

  1. The contributor sends your book code to the Memorybook WhatsApp number.
  2. They receive a guided prompt asking for their memory.
  3. They reply with text and/or photos, and the submission is created.

Enabling WhatsApp

WhatsApp is available on paid plans. Open your book's Channels page and flip the WhatsApp switch. WhatsApp is on by default for new books when your plan and our platform both support it; you can always pause it from the same page.

What contributors can send

  • Text messages
  • Photos (up to 20 MB each)

Channel features

  • Session persistence: after the first message with a book code, follow-up messages go to the same book without repeating the code.
  • Contributor identity: the sender's phone number and WhatsApp profile name are captured.
  • Duplicate protection: webhook retries from the messaging provider do not create duplicate submissions.
  • Rate limit: 20 submissions per hour per phone number.

Commands

You can send these commands instead of a story. Both bare keyword form (HELP) and slash-prefix form (/help) work; case does not matter.

  • START: Welcome message. With a book code (START BOOKCODE), connects to that book.
  • SWITCH BOOKCODE: Switch to a different book.
  • BOOK: Show which book you're currently connected to.
  • BOOKS: List every book you're a member of. Requires that this number is verified on your account.
  • JOIN: Create an Our Memory Book account. We'll send a one-time link to finish on the web.
  • NEWBOOK TITLE: Create a new memory book and bind this number to it. If you have a paid plan slot, we'll ask which plan to use; otherwise the book is created on the Free plan automatically.
  • STORIES: View your 5 most recent submissions to the current book.
  • HELP: List all available commands.

Tips

  • WhatsApp is especially popular internationally; great if your contributors are spread across countries.
  • Share the WhatsApp number alongside other submission options so contributors can pick their preferred channel.
  • Email verification (verified contributor mode) is not available for WhatsApp submissions.
  • Apple Live Photos: a normal photo send keeps only the still. To keep the motion alive, the contributor sends the still and its .MOV as documents — see sharing Live Photos.

Photo dates

For memory-collection books (those dated by when the memory happened — the default for tributes, weddings, birthdays and the like), if a contributor sends a photo without a date attached (chat apps often strip it in transit), we may reply asking when it was taken. They just reply with a date like “June 2015” or “6/10/2025” and we'll place the memory in the right spot on the timeline — or they can reply skip if they’re not sure. Personal-journal books (dated by when it was shared) don’t ask; the photo is simply dated by when it arrives.

If a photo doesn’t arrive

On the rare occasion a sent photo can’t be saved (a transient download hiccup), the contributor gets a reply telling them to send it again rather than a normal confirmation, so nothing is ever silently dropped.

Ready to try it? Create your free memory book