Receive WhatsApp Text Messages Using Python

Overview

This guide covers how to receive WhatsApp text messages when a user sends it to your registered phone number.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Python development environment.

To receive incoming messages, you must have an onboarded WhatsApp account with inbound capable numbers registered against the same. If the number is in connected state, it can receive incoming messages.

Create a Flask application to receive messages

Create a file called receive_whatsapp.py and paste into it this code.

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from flask import Flask, request

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/receive_whatsapp/', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def inbound_sms():

    from_number = request.values.get('From')
    to_number = request.values.get('To')
    text = request.values.get('Body')
    print('Message received - From: %s, To: %s, Text: %s' %(from_number, to_number, text))

    return 'Message Recevived'

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', debug=True)

Configure Webhook URL in your WhatsApp Business Account

As shown below, you can very easily add/update webhook url against a WhatsApp Business Account. Once this step is concluded, you are good to receive incoming messages.

Test

Send a text message to the Plivo number you specified using any phone.