Use Popcorn with the WhatsApp Business app

Coexistence lets one phone number work in the WhatsApp Business app and in Popcorn at the same time. Your AI agent answers customers through Popcorn, your team can still reply from the app on their phones, and both sides see the same conversation. Use it when you already run your business on the WhatsApp Business app and do not want to give the number up.

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Before you start

• The number is active in the WhatsApp Business app.
• A Meta login that can manage your business.
• A role with edit access to Integrations.

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What changes in the WhatsApp Business app

Popcorn’s setup lists these before you connect (See what keeping the app changes in Quickstart). Your number and chats stay, and a few things work differently: Before you connect, update WhatsApp Business: Facebook’s window asks you to confirm in the app on your phone and to choose whether to share your chats. Turn off greeting and away messages under Business tools so customers get one answer, and add anything they mention that your agent should know, such as your working hours, to your agent first. Connect the number customers already message. Your chats stay on your phone; new chats show in Popcorn, and so do the last 6 months if you share them.

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Set up coexistence

Right after the connection, Popcorn asks Meta for the number’s contacts and chat history from the app. Imported conversations are placed in the Closed folder of your Inbox with the AI switched off, so old chats do not trigger replies.

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Choose what happens when you reply from the app

Every message your team sends from the WhatsApp Business app also appears in the Popcorn conversation, as an outgoing message labelled via WhatsApp app. If the conversation was closed, it reopens. What your agent does next is a workspace setting. On the Account tab, the WhatsApp Business app panel appears when at least one of your numbers is shared with the app: Switch it, then click Save changes in the bar that appears; you see Settings saved. The change applies to messages sent from the app after you save; it does not change conversations already handed over. To give a conversation back to the agent, use Hand back to agent in the Inbox. See Work a conversation.

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How a coexistence number behaves differently

Messages from the app that Popcorn shows in the Inbox are copies of what your team already sent; Popcorn does not send them again. If you later move the number off the WhatsApp Business app onto the Cloud API and connect it again, Popcorn treats it as a standard number from then on: the Uses WhatsApp Business app badge disappears, Delete replaces How to disconnect, and campaigns send at the standard speed.

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Disconnect the number

Meta does not allow Popcorn to disconnect a coexistence number, so you do it from the app. On the Account tab, the row menu shows How to disconnect instead of Delete, with these instructions: The same happens if Popcorn’s access to the number is removed on Meta’s side: the number disappears from Connected numbers without you deleting it. To connect it to Popcorn again, repeat the setup above.

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If you move the app to a new phone

Moving the WhatsApp Business app to another phone can make Meta briefly take the connection down. Popcorn shows the number as Reconnecting (“Meta is checking this connection. Messages may pause for a few minutes.”) and keeps it. Meta normally restores it by itself. If access is still gone after about 45 minutes, Popcorn takes the number off Connected numbers; if Meta restores it within 7 days, Popcorn brings it back.

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