Update, October 2026 — The deadline in this article has passed. WhatsApp stopped working on the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus on 5 May 2025, and the instructions below are addressed to someone who still had four days. What happened, and the rule that tells you when your own phone is next, follows the original article.
On 5 May WhatsApp will stop running on any iPhone with iOS 15.1 or older. For most iPhone owners that means nothing — a quick software update and the app carries on. For three models it means the end: the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus cannot be updated past iOS 12, so they cannot reach the new minimum of iOS 15.2, and WhatsApp on them will simply stop.
Why WhatsApp keeps raising the floor
Every year the app adds features — encrypted backups, communities, HD media, passkeys — that lean on capabilities in newer versions of the operating system. Supporting the old versions means maintaining separate code and, more seriously, accepting security holes that Apple no longer patches. Apple stopped making the 5s, 6 and 6 Plus in 2016 and stopped issuing security updates for them years ago. WhatsApp’s own statement is that older devices “may lack the technology needed to run WhatsApp safely”, and on a phone whose operating system has known, unfixed vulnerabilities, that is not marketing.
Check your phone
- Open Settings → General → About and read the iOS Version line.
- If it says 15.2 or higher, you are fine. If it says 15.0 or 15.1, go to Settings → General → Software Update and install the latest version — an iPhone 6s or newer can reach iOS 15.8.
- If your phone is a 5s, 6 or 6 Plus, no update will help. The app will keep working until 5 May and then stop.
The Bangladesh angle
These three phones are still everywhere here: refurbished iPhone 6 units sold for Tk 8,000–10,000 on the second-hand stalls of Gulistan and Motijheel for years, often as a first iPhone for students. Anyone buying used now should treat the 6s as the oldest acceptable model — it runs iOS 15 and will keep WhatsApp for a while longer — and budget for the fact that it, too, will be cut eventually.
Keep your chats
Before the old phone goes, back up: WhatsApp → Settings → Chats → Chat Backup → Back Up Now (this needs iCloud space and Wi-Fi). Restore on the new iPhone by signing in with the same Apple ID and number and accepting the restore prompt. Moving to Android is possible through WhatsApp’s built-in transfer, but it needs both phones in hand and a cable, so do it before selling the old one, not after.
Source: Daily Mail, via Prothom Alo.
What happened, and what it means for the next one
The cutoff went ahead as announced. WhatsApp stopped functioning on the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus, and on any other device that could not reach the required iOS version. Nothing was recoverable afterwards for anyone who had not backed up — which is the normal outcome of these deadlines, and the reason this update leads with the date rather than the advice.
The useful question now is not about those three phones. It is how to know, in advance, when your phone is next.
The ratchet, and why it is not arbitrary
Minimum operating-system requirements only move in one direction, and they move for a reason worth understanding, because it tells you roughly when it will happen to you.
An app that must support an old OS version carries separate code paths for it, cannot use anything introduced since, and — the part that actually forces the decision — has to keep running on a system the manufacturer has stopped patching. Once a device no longer receives security updates, every flaw found in it afterwards stays open permanently. An encrypted messaging app running on an operating system with known unfixed vulnerabilities is not providing what it claims to provide, because the encryption is sound and the device underneath it is not.
So the sequence is always the same: the manufacturer stops issuing security updates for a device, that device is stranded on an old OS version, and some months or years later the apps raise their minimum past it. The app's announcement is the last step, and by then the real event — the end of security updates — happened long before, usually without anyone noticing.
How to check where your own phone stands
Two numbers decide everything, and neither is the phone's age.
1. What OS version it is on, and whether that is the latest it can take. On iPhone this is Settings → General → About for the current version, and Settings → General → Software Update to see whether anything is offered. On Android it is Settings → About phone, with the Android version and the security patch level listed separately — the patch level is the one that matters, and a date more than a year old is the warning.
2. Whether the manufacturer is still issuing security updates for that model. This is published, and it is the single fact that predicts everything else. Apple supports iPhones with security updates for a long time but does not state an end date in advance. Android manufacturers now publish explicit support windows, and they vary enormously between a flagship and a budget model from the same brand.
If your device is on its last possible OS version and the manufacturer has stopped issuing updates, the only open question is which app drops it first.
What this means when buying second-hand
This is where the advice is worth the most, because the second-hand market prices phones on condition and model name, and neither predicts how long the phone will remain usable.
A refurbished handset in excellent physical condition can be two months from being stranded, while a scuffed one from a different line has four years of updates left. The screen tells you nothing; the support window tells you everything. Before buying any used phone, look up when that exact model stops receiving security updates, and treat the remaining years as the real specification — more important than storage, condition or camera, because it determines whether the phone still does its job at the end.
The practical rule: a phone with less than two years of security support remaining is a short-term purchase whatever it costs, and should be priced as one.
Before any old phone is retired or sold
These steps are the same whenever a device is replaced, and they are easier to do before the phone becomes unusable rather than after.
- Back up the chats. In WhatsApp: Settings → Chats → Chat Backup → Back Up Now. This needs cloud storage space and Wi-Fi, and a backup that has never been tested is a hope rather than a backup.
- Restore on the new device by signing in with the same account and number and accepting the restore prompt when it appears — it appears once, during setup, and skipping it means starting empty.
- If you are changing platform, between iPhone and Android, the built-in transfer needs both phones in hand and a cable. Do it before selling the old one, not after, because this is the step people discover too late.
- Sign out and erase before the phone leaves your hands, including removing it from the account it is linked to, so that a factory reset cannot be undone by someone with the handset.
