accounts

Read when: using more than one WhatsApp account, choosing the active account, or migrating from manual --store directories.

wacli accounts manages named accounts. Each account is an isolated store directory with its own WhatsApp linked-device session, local mirror database, media files, and lock.

#Commands

wacli accounts list
wacli accounts add NAME [--no-auth]
wacli accounts use NAME
wacli accounts show NAME
wacli accounts remove NAME

Use a named account with any command:

wacli --account work chats list
wacli --account personal send text --to 1234567890 --message "hi"

#Config

The default config path is <base>/config.yaml, where <base> is the default store root (~/.wacli on macOS and existing legacy Linux installs, otherwise ~/.local/state/wacli on Linux).

default_account: personal

accounts:
  personal:
    store: accounts/personal
  work:
    store: accounts/work

Relative store paths resolve from the config directory. Absolute paths are allowed for custom layouts.

#Selection Rules

Store selection is intentionally explicit:

1. --store DIR uses that exact store and cannot be combined with --account.
2. --account NAME resolves NAME from config.yaml.
3. WACLI_STORE_DIR keeps its existing override behavior for scripts and one-off stores.
4. If default_account is set, commands use that account.
5. Otherwise existing single-store behavior remains: XDG state dir on Linux, or ~/.wacli elsewhere.

Account names may contain letters, digits, ., _, and -, and must start with a letter or digit.

#Notes

• accounts add NAME creates the isolated store and then runs the normal auth/bootstrap flow for that account. Use --no-auth to only write config and create the store.
• Locks are per account store, so wacli --account personal sync --follow and wacli --account work chats list do not block each other unless they share the same store path.
• Cross-account search or status should be explicit aggregate commands, not accidental shared database queries.
• Use --store DIR for one-off migration/debugging against an old manual store.