First of all, you need to check your device for compatibility with an update. In 2023, approximately 75% of Android devices reached the minimum system requirements for the latest FM WhatsApp versions, which go as high as Android 4.4. If your device meets the minimum, you are free to download an update. The update usually takes anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, depending on your internet speed, with the update size varying from 20MB to 100MB. For example, the FM WhatsApp update at the end of 2023 weighed about 70MB and brought some new privacy features and bug fixes.
After that, you should ensure that the storage capacity of your device is sufficient. As recommended by the Android system, it should have at least 150MB of free space for an efficient update, which may vary depending on how your device is configured. In one of the investigations by XDA Developers, it was pointed out that people who had less than 100MB free space always encountered difficulties in updating applications, including failure to install.
Having ensured your device is ready, head to the FM WhatsApp application. If you downloaded the APK file directly from a third-party site, say from the official FM WhatsApp update page, you can go ahead and manually install it. In this case, you allow installations of third-party apps in settings; the feature is disabled by default for security reasons. When downloading them, ensure that this is done only through trusted sources to avoid malware or phishing of information. According to Kaspersky in 2022, over 40 percent of Android users experienced security risks after installing third-party apps from unofficial sites.
If you are updating FM WhatsApp via the Google Play Store or any other official app store, then the update basically happens automatically. The moment the update notification shows up, tap “Update” and wait until the download and installation are complete. Sometimes the application may force a restart to apply an update, so make sure you are not in the middle of an important conversation before you start the update.
The last step is to check that all your messages and media are intact. In 2023, FM WhatsApp introduced an auto-backup facility; therefore, backups are usually done on Google Drive or locally. If you have enabled it before updating, you should recover your conversations and media in case something is missing. According to the feedback from users, more than 90% of users who, before the update, backed up their data to Google Drive reported no issues in restoring it.
Those who face problems after updating FM WhatsApp are advised to look for any new patches or bug fixes. Quite often, the FM WhatsApp development team releases small patches to fix issues that happen right after an update. This happened when users faced some crashes or bugs in previous updates. Indeed, a patch came out after the update to FM WhatsApp that happened at the beginning of 2024 and fixed the issues with logging in for 15% of users.
For more detailed instructions or troubleshooting, please visit the fm whatsapp update page.