WhatsApp is building birthday reminders for a new Contacts tab on iPhone. The feature marks a contact’s birthday with a cake emoji and a “Birthday today” label under their name, so users can spot it the moment they open the tab.
The feature was found in the WhatsApp beta for iOS 26.38.10.18 on TestFlight, according to WABetaInfo. It is still under development and is not available to beta testers yet, and WhatsApp has not announced when it plans to ship the feature.
WhatsApp Reads Birthdays From Your Address Book
WhatsApp does not ask users to type in birthday dates inside the app. It pulls them from the phone’s address book, so anyone who already has birthdays saved in the Contacts app will see reminders automatically.
To add a birthday for someone, edit that contact in the Contacts app and fill in the birthday field. WhatsApp should pick it up the next time the app is opened. The reminder stays visible for the entire day, so it does not matter when the tab gets opened. It also does not send an alert, which means it will not interrupt anyone.
The Contacts Tab Is Still Being Built
The Contacts tab is meant to sit in the bottom navigation bar and take the place of the Updates tab. That swap depends on WhatsApp first moving status updates and channels into the Chats tab. Status updates already appear at the top of the chat list for some users, and channels are expected to follow later.
Once those changes ship, the Contacts tab is expected to show a few details about the people users talk to.
- Who is online right now
- Who was recently active
- Whose birthday it is today
Elsewhere on iPhone, WhatsApp recently began rolling out third-party agent chats and is testing three-account support as well. Birthday reminders are part of the work to make the new tab useful before it reaches everyone, and the feature is expected to reach beta testers in a future update.
Our Take
Birthday reminders are a small addition, and the address book approach is the right one because nobody has to enter dates twice. The bigger change is the Contacts tab itself, which would move Updates out of the main navigation. I would wait to see how WhatsApp handles channels before judging the new layout.
