After being a die hard user of android since the days of froyo I am very much used to sharing audio files via WhatsApp.
Since Android life cycle is not what I personally like, I switched to windows phone 8.1 (Lumia 435 to be specific) recently and started using it. My experience with Lumia is another story and I will share it later. The reason I wrote this article is the limit of WhatsApp WebApp (chrome extension) and windows phone version of sending pictures/video files only… i.e. no audio file cannot be shared.
The only possible solution I came up is to share audio files (usually mp3) as .mp4. i.e. change the extension name from .mp3 to .mp4 and WhatsApp WebApp and windows Phone app will start showing it under video sharing options.
Sharing Audio Files in Windows Phone
Let’s start with the WhatsApp for windows phone 8.1 first.
Chances are if you are using WhatsApp and have received some images from your friends you will find a folder
Pictures -> WhatsApp
in your sdcard (or in the phone storage if you have selected to use phone storage instead of sdcard).
WhatsApp save all the pictures, videos and voice notes in this (oh so neatly organized) folder.
As you can see in the above screenshots. Images and video files all are listed in the same folder.
Now to share an audio file we have to copy it to this same folder and change the file extension to “.mp4” (of course without quotes) Like I did with the last file called burhapa.mp3… I changed it to burhapa.mp4
I have tested .mp3 and it worked fine (played without error) on mobile and computer both.
After changing the file extension, open WhatsApp and tap attach icon
Select Videos
Select the folder WhatsApp in albums
Select the audio (listed here as video) you can to share.
Just remember that here files are not named, so it’s a trial and error for sharing the right file.
Make sure that’s the right file (by checking the audio length) then
Tap Send
… and go hurray
Sharing Audio Files in Windows WhatsApp WebApp
Same technique applies to sharing video files from WhatsApp WebApp.
change the file extension to .mp4 and select the attach icon in your WebApp. Select the audio (now showing as video) and share it.
Conclusion
Even by doing all such steps We are not able to share/forward a received audio to broadcast list.
For doing so, save the file using WhatsApp WebApp and then shared it from there. No shortcut…
We don’t know about sending files in any other format, maybe changing the extension works, maybe not… give it a try and update me.
We hope this illustration save some other people from wasting their time or thinking that sharing audio is simple impossible in windows phone/pc.
We are too much disappointed from the work of both companies WhatsApp and Microsoft for missing something as basic as file sharing.
The above article is solely intended for people who would like to share Islamic Audios and Scholarly lectures.