As reports suggested that popular messaging application WhatsApplinkmightstop working from January 1, 2021, the company has announced it iswithdrawing support for some old devices which are currently compatiblewith the application.

While some users with old devices will be able to keep on using WhatsApp byupdating its software, others won’t be so lucky.

Dropping support for old phones is not something new for WhatsApp. Thistime, the messaging platform is dropping support for any iPhone running onsoftware older than iOS9.

This means that the iPhone 4 and other models won’t be able to accessWhatsApp from January 1, 2021. iPhone 4S, 5, 5S, 5C, 6 and 6S can all beupdated to iOS9, hence they will be able to support WhatsApp once updated.

There’s bad news for Android users as well. WhatsApp will no longer work ondevices running Android 4.0.3 or older versions of the operating system.What can users do?

First and foremost, you should find out which operating system your phoneis using.

In order to find out what operating system your phone is running on, iPhoneusers can go to Settings > General > Information, where you will findinformation about the software version on your iPhone.

On the other hand, Android users can go to Settings > About Phone to seewhich Android version their smartphone is running on.

One of the main problems that users will face when their WhatsApp no longerremains accessible is no access to their chats.

Hence, it is important for people with any such phones mentioned above toback up their chats before January 1, 2021 if they want to retain them.

They can do so by going to ‘Chat backup’ option under Chats section inSettings.