WhatsApp gets a chat redesign

By Bryan M. Wolfe Published February 13, 2025

WhatsApp on iPhone with new themes. — Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends

If you’re a fan of WhatsApp, we have some good news for you. The free messaging and video calling app now includes chat themes, which should make your experience a little more customized.

To make the change, go to the Chats menu in Settings. From there, select Choose a new wallpaper, then select one of the preset options under two subcategories: Light or Dark.

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Perhaps more importantly, if you dislike the presets, you can choose an image from your photo library. You can also adjust the brightness of the background and the color of your outgoing messages.

Previously, chat themes were available in beta versions of WhatsApp.

When you change a chat theme, the look will be changed across all your chats. However, you can adjust the theme on a chat-by-chat basis. The steps differ whether you’re on an iPhone or Android device.

On iPhone, you can create a custom wallpaper for each chat by choosing Contact or Group Info and then Wallpaper. You can do this on Android by choosing the three dots in the upper right of the display and then selecting the Chat theme.

New chat themes on WhatsApp. — Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends

Chat themes are a great idea; surprisingly, WhatsApp hasn’t offered these until now. Still, it’s important to note that any change you make will only be shown on your side of a chat. Other folks will continue to see their theme.

If you’re not one of the billions of people not already using WhatsApp, you can download the app from the App Store or Google Play now. It will look perfect on your new Galaxy S25 Ultra or iPhone 16.

Former Mobile and A/V Freelancer

Bryan M. Wolfe has over a decade of experience as a technology writer. He writes about mobile.

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