Troubleshooting WhatsApp Not Showing Names

Did you know that the average person has 300 contacts on their phone? These persons are family members, friends, colleagues or simple acquaintances.

Now, how many phone numbers do you know by heart? Five, maybe? That’s why WhatsApp showing numbers instead of your contacts’ names is a really big issue.

Oftentimes, if WhatsApp shows your contacts’ numbers instead of their names, this indicates the app could not sync with your Contacts. Most likely, there’s a sync problem between WhatsApp and your Contacts app.

WhatsApp Doesn’t Display Contact Names

1. Reset WhatsApp sync with your contacts

Since the root cause of this problem is often a sync issue, you can fix it by forcing WhatsApp to resync with your Contacts app.

1. Open your phone’s Settings app
2. Go to Users & accounts and select WhatsApp
3. Tap the Sync option to force WhatsApp to sync contacts.

2. Refresh your Contacts list

There’s a very handy Refresh button that you can use to refresh your Contacts list on WhatsApp. To use this feature:

1. Launch WhatsApp again, and open a new chat by tapping on the New Chat icon
2. Select the three-dot menu (More options) in the new window
3. Tap the Refresh button to quickly refresh your Contacts list and the information related to your contacts.

3. Check your phone’s settings

If you resynced WhatsApp and the Contacts app, yet the issue persists, check your phone settings. Maybe you accidentally enabled certain settings that are preventing WhatsApp from functioning as it should.

If you disabled certain permissions for WhatsApp, the app may fail to access your list of contacts.

1. Go to your phone’s Settings, select Apps, and then tap WhatsApp
2. Check the app permissions, and ensure all of the permissions have been enabled
   • Under Permissions, select Contacts and make sure the Contacts access for the app is enabled.

4. Update WhatsApp

Updating your app could solve this problem, especially if you’re not running the latest WhatsApp version on your phone.

To update WhatsApp, open Google Play Store, search for WhatsApp using the search option and if you see an Update icon next to the app, tap on it to launch the update process.

If nothing worked, you can uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.