Video Messages

Updated: May 21, 2026

Video messages display a thumbnail preview of a video image with an optional caption. When the WhatsApp user taps the preview, it loads the video and displays it to the user.

Sending Video Messages

Use the Messages API to send a video message to a WhatsApp user.

Request syntax

POST /<WHATSAPP_BUSINESS_PHONE_NUMBER_ID>/messages

Post body

{
  "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "{{wa-user-phone-number}}",
  "type": "video",
  "video": {
    "id" : "<MEDIA_ID>", /* Only if using uploaded media */
    "link": "<MEDIA_URL>", /* Only if linking to your media */
    "caption": "<VIDEO_CAPTION_TEXT>"
  }
}

Post body parameters

Placeholder	Description	Example Value
`<VIDEO_CAPTION_TEXT>` String	Optional. Video caption text. Maximum 1024 characters.	`A succulent eclipse!`
`<MEDIA_ID>` String	Required if using an uploaded media asset (recommended). Uploaded media asset ID.	`1166846181421424`
`<MEDIA_URL>` String	Required if linking to your media asset (not recommended) URL of video asset on your public server. For better performance, we recommend that you upload your media asset instead.	`https://www.luckyshrub.com/assets/lucky-shrub-eclipse-viewing.mp4`
`<WHATSAPP_USER_PHONE_NUMBER>` String	Required. WhatsApp user phone number.	`+16505551234`

Supported Video Formats

Only H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec supported. Single audio stream or no audio stream only.

Note that videos encoded with the H.264 “High” profile and B-frames are not supported by Android WhatsApp clients. We recommend that you use H.264 “Main” profile without B-frames, or the H.264 “Baseline” profile when encoding (or re-encoding with a tool like ffmpeg), and place moov boxes before mdat boxes, for broader compatibility. If you are using ffmpeg, you can use the -movflags faststart flag to place moov boxes before mdata boxes.

Video Type	Extension	MIME Type	Max Size
3GPP	.3gp	video/3gpp	16 MB
MP4 Video	.mp4	video/mp4	16 MB

Example request

Example request to send a video message with a caption to a WhatsApp user.

curl 'https://graph.facebook.com/v25.0/106540352242922/messages' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer EAAJB...' \
-d '{
  "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "+16505551234",
  "type": "video",
  "video": {
    "id" : "1166846181421424",
    "caption": "A succulent eclipse!"
  }
}'

Example response

{
  "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
  "contacts": [
    {
      "input": "+16505551234",
      "wa_id": "16505551234"
    }
  ],
  "messages": [
    {
      "id": "wamid.HBgLMTY0NjcwNDM1OTUVAgARGBI1RjQyNUE3NEYxMzAzMzQ5MkEA"
    }
  ]
}