How to make a WhatsApp chat screenshot that looks real

What you need

A contact name, a profile photo if you want one, and a short script. Fakeconvo's WhatsApp chat generator draws the chat in the WhatsApp style, is free, needs no account and puts no watermark on the PNG. Your photos and text stay in your browser.

Five steps to a realistic WhatsApp chat

1. Set up the header. Under People, type the other person's name; it shows at the top next to a round avatar with their initial, or click the round button before the name to add a profile photo. Under the name WhatsApp says "online"; type something else in "Status under the name", such as "last seen today at 09:12" or "typing…", to match the moment. For a group, turn on "Group chat", type the "Group name" and use "+ Add person": the header then lists every member, with "You" for you.
2. Write the messages. Under Messages, use "+ From …" for the others and "+ From me" for yours. Yours are green on the right, theirs white on the left, and only the first bubble of a run gets the little tail. In a group, the sender's name sits on their first bubble in a colour of its own, so each member is easy to follow.
3. Set the ticks. Every message you send carries the time and its ticks in the bottom corner: pick "Sent" (one grey tick), "Delivered" (two grey ticks) or "Read" (two blue ticks) in that message's "Status". Turn off "Read receipts" and the blue ticks turn grey, just like when someone has read receipts switched off. "Show timestamps" hides the times.
4. Add replies, reactions and photos. Pick an older message in "Reply to" and WhatsApp quotes it at the top of the bubble with the sender's name, or "You"; in a group the quote takes the sender's colour, and a quoted photo shows a camera icon and a thumbnail. Under "Reactions", tap an emoji to pin it under the bubble. "+ Photo" sends an image with the time on the photo, or under a "Caption" in the same bubble. WhatsApp has no automatic date pill, so use "+ Date / notice" for "Today" or a line like "Anna added Leo".
5. Set the look and export. Turn on "Dark mode" for the dark theme, set the "Status bar time" and battery, and download the PNG at 2x or 3x, as the phone screen or the whole chat.

Details that make a WhatsApp chat look staged

People type fast on WhatsApp: short bubbles, several in a row, a voice of their own, an emoji reaction instead of a full answer. A long paragraph with perfect punctuation reads like an email, not a chat.

Watch the clock and the ticks. Keep replies a minute or two apart, set the status bar time a little after the last message and don't leave the header saying "online" in a chat that ended hours ago. Blue ticks with no answer mean the other person left you on read, and grey ticks on a message they replied to can't happen, so check the status of each one. And don't mix looks: blue iMessage bubbles or "Delivered" written under a message belong to another app.

Use it the right way

WhatsApp screenshots are for videos, ads, stories, app mock-ups and lessons, such as showing a class what a "Hi Mum, I lost my phone, can you send me money?" scam looks like. Do not put words in the mouths of real people, do not make a chat that looks like proof of something that never happened, and do not use one to scam, bully or embarrass anyone. Our acceptable use page has the details.