How to send an HTML page on WhatsApp so it opens in one tap

You made a page with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. It is a college project, a portfolio, a timetable for your tuition class, or a price list for your shop. Someone has to see it. They will open it from WhatsApp on their phone.

Can you send an HTML file on WhatsApp?

WhatsApp sends files through its Document option. Its help pages give the steps and a size limit. They do not list which file types it takes.

• Android. Open the chat, tap the attach icon (a paper clip), choose Document, and pick the file. WhatsApp's Android help says you can “select a document of up to 2 GB from your phone.”
• iPhone. Tap the attach icon (a plus sign), choose Document, and pick the file from iCloud Drive or another source, such as your Google Account or Dropbox (iPhone help).
• WhatsApp Web. Click the plus sign and choose Document, or drag the file into the text field (WhatsApp Web help).

The help pages for Android, iPhone, and WhatsApp Web list the same size limit: “For documents, the maximum file size allowed is 2 GB.”

What arrives is a document. It does not show up as a web page. WhatsApp's help does not say how a phone opens an .html document. For PDFs, its help on files that won't open states: “Without a PDF reader, you won't be able to open a downloaded PDF file.”

Why the file does not open as a page on their phone

An HTML file is a set of instructions for a browser, not a picture of the page. When you send the file alone, it can lose part of what the page needs to work.

• Files the page loads by name stay on your computer. Pages often keep styles in a style.css file, pictures in files like photo.png, and code in a .js file next to the .html file. WhatsApp sends only the single file you pick. In our test on October 13, 2026, using Chromium, we opened a test page twice. Opened from its own folder, the separate CSS, image, and script all loaded. Opened as a lone copy, the way a single file arrives from a chat, none of the 3 loaded. The text lost its styles, the image broke, and the script did not run. Only CSS written directly inside the .html file still applied.
• A phone's file preview isn't a browser. On an iPhone, when you tap a saved .html file in Files, you see a preview screen. In our test on iOS 26.3 in Apple's iPhone Simulator, this preview ran none of the page's JavaScript. It loaded nothing from the web. It skipped images from https:// links, Google Fonts, and Tailwind from a CDN. A Tailwind page showed completely unstyled.

A link fixes the preview problem. When the page lives at a web address, the other phone opens it in an actual browser. The browser then loads everything the page needs from the web. Step 1 below fixes the missing files by putting the whole page into one file.

When to send the file itself

Send the file itself when the other person needs the code. Send it to a teacher who marks your HTML, or a developer who will change it. They open the file on a computer, where a browser shows it. Anyone who only has to look at the page needs a link.

Send an HTML page on WhatsApp as a link in 4 steps

Convika's upload box is one way to turn your page into a link. If you want to compare it with Netlify Drop, Tiiny Host, GitHub Pages, or other hosting options, or see how to send links on email, Slack, and Teams, read How to share an HTML file as a link.

1. Put the page in one file

Convika accepts one .html or .htm file up to 2 MB, or the exact code pasted into the box. If your page uses a separate CSS file or links to images stored on your computer, ask the AI that wrote it: “Give me the whole page as one HTML file, with the CSS inline and full https:// links for images.” Any images must use full https:// addresses, such as files hosted on your own website or an image hosting platform.

2. Drop the file or paste the code

Drag your file into the box at the top of this page, or select Paste code and paste your code directly. If you are on a phone, copy everything from your chat with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini from the very first line down to the closing </html> tag. Click Get my preview link. You do not need an account or an email address. Each network gets 10 previews a day. If your code still points to local files on your computer, the box shows a list of them so you can fix those links first.

3. Open the link on your own phone

When you see “Your preview is ready,” click Copy link and open that address on your phone before you send it to anyone else. The preview shows a top bar stating that someone uploaded the page using Convika's free tool, with scripts and forms disabled. A small Convika bar sits at the bottom. Look over the screen to confirm your layout holds and your images load. Interactive parts like script-driven buttons, menus, and quizzes will not work in this preview. They run after you keep the page in the next step.

4. Paste the link into the WhatsApp chat

Send the published address of the page, not the preview link. The preview link works for 3 minutes so you can check your own work. When the layout looks right, click Keep this page — free, no card above your preview link, sign up, click Publish page, choose Public, click Next, then, the first time, click Publish free. You can still choose to keep the page after the preview expires. To share it, follow the steps from WhatsApp help: copy the link, open your chat, paste the link, and tap send. When the recipient taps the link, the page opens directly in their phone browser without installing an app or creating a Convika account.

Keep the page, or share it with only a few people

The preview link lets you check the page on your own phone first. Keep any page you plan to send: a project your teacher opens tomorrow or next month, a class timetable for every new student, or a shop page that takes orders.

• Keep it on the Free plan. Click Keep this page — free, no card above the preview link. Sign up, and the page moves into your account exactly as uploaded, with its scripts running. Click Publish page. Under Who can open this page?, choose Public and click Next. The first time you publish, Convika shows Publish free, and under it Publish without the Convika bar, which opens an order for Pro monthly (1 day free with a card, then $12 a month). To publish on Free, click Publish free. The page goes live at an address like yourpage.convika.page. The address stays the same until you click Unpublish. Free includes 10,000 page views a month across all your pages. The preview link stops working, so send the published address instead. The Free plan needs no credit card. You get 1 published page, 50 form entries a month shown (entries past that are kept and show on Pro), and 1 custom subdomain (e.g. www.yourname.com). Your page shows the small Convika bar.
• Take enquiries and count visits. Click Add a form to my page to collect the enquiries or signups people send. Once the page is published, your dashboard counts visits by day. It shows each visitor's country and device across the last 90 days. It records no names and no phone numbers. Read how the numbers work: How to see who visits your page.
• Keep it out of Google, or lock it with a password. The free choice when you publish is Public: anyone with the link can open the page, and it may show up in search results and in Convika's gallery. To keep it out of both, choose Private link (Pro or pass) under Who can open this page? when you publish. Convika then leaves the page out of the sitemap and tells search engines to keep it out of their results, though anyone with the link can still open it without a password or account—including anyone your chat forwards it to on WhatsApp. If the link might get forwarded and you only want certain people to open it, pick Only people with the password in the publish dialog and order Pro monthly (1 day free with a card, then $12 a month), or the 1-year pass ($29, paid once, no renewal) from the link under the order's button, or, on Pro, set one under Page password in Page settings. Visitors see a password screen first, and Convika sends the page only after they enter the right password—and because search engines see just the password screen, what's on the page stays out of search results too. A page password is a Pro feature ($12 a month). Send the password in a separate message or tell them on a call. See How to password protect an HTML page for what visitors see.

How to open an HTML file someone sent you on WhatsApp

If someone sends you an HTML file on WhatsApp, ask them for a link instead. Do not open a file you were not expecting; check with the sender first. If the file is already saved on your phone, open our free HTML viewer in Chrome or Safari. Tap Choose an .html file, and pick your file. The viewer runs right in your browser. The page loads its scripts and images from the web, and your file is not uploaded anywhere. If you feel unsure about the file, turn off Run scripts before you pick it. None of its scripts will run, and its forms cannot send anything. Any styles and pictures the sender kept in separate files will still not show. Only a link from the sender displays those.

Frequently asked questions

Can I send an HTML file on WhatsApp?

WhatsApp sends files through the Document option. Tap the attach icon, choose Document, and pick the file. WhatsApp's help lists 2 GB as the largest document and provides no list of file types. The recipient gets the file itself, not a live page. Send a link if they only need to look.

How do I share an HTML page on WhatsApp so it opens as a website?

Upload the page to a host, then paste the link in the chat. In the upload box on this page, drop the .html file or paste code, then click Get my preview link. You get a private preview link in seconds with no signup. It works 3 minutes, which is long enough to check the page. To send it, keep the page with a free account, publish, and paste the published address. When they tap the link, it opens in their phone's browser.

How do I open an HTML file I got on WhatsApp?

Ask the sender for a link so the page opens in your phone's browser. If you saved the file on your phone, open the free HTML viewer in Chrome or Safari, and tap Choose an .html file. It shows the page with its scripts, and your file is not uploaded. If you receive an unexpected file, ask the sender before opening, and turn off Run scripts first. The iPhone Files app shows a preview instead. In a test on iOS 26.3 in Apple's simulator, we found that it ran no scripts and loaded no images from the web.

Why does my HTML file open without its CSS on a phone?

If your CSS is in a separate file such as style.css, that file stayed on your computer. WhatsApp sends only the file you pick. Ask the AI that made the page for one HTML file with the CSS inline, then share it as a link.

How do I share an HTML and CSS project on WhatsApp?

Put the project into one file, then send a link. Ask the AI that made it, word for word: “Give me the whole page as one HTML file, with the CSS inline and full https:// links for images.” Upload that file with the box on this page, then paste the link in the chat. Convika hosts one page per file. A multi-page project must be combined into one first, or go to a host that takes a folder, such as Netlify Drop. If someone needs the code itself, send the files as documents too.

How do I send a link on WhatsApp?

Copy the link, open the chat, paste, and tap send, according to WhatsApp's help. A message with just one link shows a preview of it. To see the full address of a link someone sent you, tap the short link before tapping Open Link.