Sending location and contact messages

Location messages

Latitude and longitude, with an optional name and address shown under the pin. The recipient sees a map preview and can open it in their own maps application.

Supplying the name and address is worth the effort. Without them the pin shows coordinates, which tells a customer nothing about whether they are looking at the right branch.

Receiving a location

A customer sharing their location arrives on the messages webhook as a message of type location, with coordinates and, when the customer's app supplied them, a name and address.

• Coordinates are always present; name and address are not.
• A shared location is a message, so it reopens the 24 hour service window.
• Treat the coordinates as approximate. Phone accuracy varies.
• Store what you need. Meta is not a location history.

Contact messages

One or more contact cards in a single message, each carrying the fields of a vCard: names, phones, emails, addresses, organisation and a birthday. The recipient can save the card directly.

Useful for handing a customer the right person's details rather than typing a number into a chat, where it arrives as unformatted text that has to be copied by hand.

What Coexistence removes

Live location is one of the four WhatsApp features Meta switches off on a number once Coexistence is active, alongside disappearing messages, view once media and broadcast lists.

Attempting to send one returns error 131051, unsupported message type, which reads like a formatting mistake and is not. No provider can enable it: the restriction is Meta's and applies to every Coexistence number. Static location pins are unaffected and work normally.

Common mistakes

• Sending a pin without a name or address. Coordinates alone tell a customer nothing.
• Building on live location. It is disabled on every Coexistence number.
• Reading error 131051 as a formatting bug when the type is genuinely unavailable.

Frequently asked questions

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