WhatsApp is preparing a feature that could make birthday greetings far harder to miss. The app is testing reminder notifications for contacts’ birthdays, giving users an in-app alert when a saved birthday is about to arrive.
For many people, that sounds like a small addition. In practice, it could prevent one of the most common everyday slip-ups in messaging: remembering the date only after the day has already passed.
How the reminder feature is expected to work
WABetaInfo spotted the feature in WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.26.27.3. It is still under development and is not yet available to beta testers, which means the company has not opened public testing for the feature.
According to the screenshots shared by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is building a dedicated section inside the app that will show upcoming birthdays from a user’s contacts. When a contact’s birthday arrives, the app will send an in-app notification so the user can respond on time.
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Feature status | Still in development |
| Beta version | WhatsApp beta for Android 2.26.27.3 |
| Main function | Reminds users about contacts’ birthdays and sends in-app notifications |
| Data requirement | Only appears if the contact has shared a birthday date with WhatsApp |
The reminder will only appear if WhatsApp has access to the relevant birth date. If a contact never enters that information, the app has nothing to process and no reminder will be shown.
Birthday data may become more useful inside WhatsApp
The app originally collected birth dates to comply with age-verification rules in some U.S. states. That data was only visible to WhatsApp, but it now appears to be serving a more practical purpose for users as well.
At the same time, WhatsApp has not introduced a dedicated privacy control that lets users decide whether their birthday information can be shared with contacts. WABetaInfo also has not found any option confirming that the data can be kept visible only to WhatsApp and hidden from contacts, as reported by detikINET on Friday (10/7/2026).
That leaves open the possibility of additional privacy settings before launch, but no such control has been confirmed yet. For now, the feature remains unreleased, and WhatsApp has not said when it will be available to all users.
The birthday reminder is arriving alongside another notable feature in development: WhatsApp’s username system, which is expected to launch later this year and is already open for reservation.
