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Heyhey everyone,

I am going to switch from my Synapse instance (back) to Continuwuity in a month. The main reason I've been using it is to chat with family who are only on Whatsapp and iMessage (Yes, I tried getting them someplace else. Whatsapp ended up being that other place). Though I'm also in groups on other Matrix instances.

The main annoyances I had with using the bridge until now are:

  1. I need to open the app every two weeks on my second phone (which tends to get lost when I need it).
  2. The time my server went out for a couple of days also made me unsure of self hosting a bridge. I don't mind if I can't see some support messages for a couple of days, but I do mind not being able to get texts from family.

Compared to just using the app it's a difficult proposition. But on the other hand I don't have anything proprietary installed on my phone and I'd like to keep it that way if possible.

There is technically a third option by hosting an iMessage bridge, but I don't have a spare Mac. And while my second phone is an iPhone, there is no documentation on how to bridge via a 64-bit iPhone. In this case however, there would be no two weeks access requirement.

I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts and maybe some other way to tackle this!

Cheers!

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[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I run continuwuity and the mautrix-whatsapp bridge. It's not 100% reliable, but close enough for me. Especially after I moved it from the NAS in my basement to a VPS in some datacenter. I occasionally had some issues with my ISP doing maintenance, a power outage at home... I let WhatsApp run on my kitchen tablet 24/7 so it keeps that 14 day timer running. To my knowledge that's unavoidable unless you switch WhatsApp Business or something.

And I like Continuwuity way better than Synapse and the ridiculous amount of resources it uses to forward text messages.

But yeah, silently dropping the connection isn't great at all. I think the only proper solution is to nag people into using a different messenger. Signal is relatively straightforward to use, made for average people and comes with the same functionality as WhatsApp.

[-] Lemmert@reddthat.com 3 points 9 hours ago

I actually mostly use Signal. I got my family to use Signal for a while, but they just ended up sending texts I did not strictly need to see on iMessage. Hence why we eventually settled on Whatsapp

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I wish my friends and family did the pre-screening of messages and their importance to me as well ๐Ÿ˜† I get important messages and silly memes all mixed in the same group chats, so it's impossible for me to tell whether I need to pick up my phone.

[-] Lemmert@reddthat.com 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Haha. Yeah we have a seperate "memechat" for non-serious stuff (which went to iMessage in that Signal period) so I just have that one automatically muted on select hours of the day.

[-] Lemmert@reddthat.com 3 points 9 hours ago

By keeping it open 24/7 do you mean that the app is actively taking screen space or is an unclosed app in the background? I hadn't actually thought of not swiping the app away after refreshing the timer. And yeah I was looking at OpenWA as well but that's for businesses.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Background will do. I think even swiping it away is fine, as long as you don't force-close it. Just pay attention there is some Play store or Aurora store doing automatic app updates. I skipped on the updates and once WhatsApp hadn't been updated for several months, they closed the connection.

[-] Lemmert@reddthat.com 3 points 8 hours ago

I do have a tablet I use as a glorified recipe book. So that might just do it. Thanks, you've been a huge help!

this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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