A modern, native GTK4/LibAdwaita wrapper for WhatsApp Web that provides seamless integration with the Linux desktop environment.

Karere 1.1.0 brings significant improvements including microphone support, background startup, and performance optimizations.

• 🎤 Microphone Support: Native permission handling for voice messages
• 🚀 Background Start: Option to launch silently in background
• ⚡ Performance: Faster startup/shutdown and responsive UI
• ✅ Working Notifications: WhatsApp notifications work perfectly with proper banner persistence
• 🖼️ Image Paste: Ctrl+V works for both text and images in WhatsApp Web
• 📥 Download Manager: Custom download directory with toast notifications

• Added microphone permission support
• Added manual and auto-reload capabilities
• Fixed startup freezes and dictionary loading
• Added MPRIS workaround documentation

For detailed release notes and version history, see CHANGELOG.md.

• Native Desktop Integration: True native notifications using GNotification with persistent permission state
• WhatsApp Web Integration: Full WhatsApp Web functionality with proper notification handling
• LibAdwaita Theming: Full support for Light, Dark, and System themes with native styling
• WebKitGTK Optimization: Efficient resource usage with persistent storage for cookies and sessions
• Image & Text Paste: Seamless Ctrl+V support for both images and text content
• Download Manager: Custom download directory selection with completion notifications

• Screen Reader Optimization: Full ARIA labels and semantic HTML
• Keyboard Navigation: Complete keyboard-only navigation with visible focus indicators (82 focusable elements)
• High Contrast Mode: Automatic detection and adaptation
• Reduced Motion: Respects system reduce-motion preferences
• Configurable Shortcuts: All keyboard shortcuts can be enabled/disabled
• Focus Management: Logical focus chain for efficient navigation

• Multi-Language Support: 80+ dictionaries from LibreOffice
• Auto-Detection: Automatically detect language from system locale
• Manual Selection: Choose specific languages for spell checking
• Real-time Checking: Inline spell checking as you type

• Granular Notification Controls: Customize notification behavior and previews
• Privacy Settings: Control data logging and crash reporting
• Theme Selection: Choose between Light, Dark, or System theme
• Zoom Control: Configurable WebView zoom (disabled by default)

flatpak install flathub io.github.tobagin.karere

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/tobagin/karere.git
cd karere

# Build and install development version
./scripts/build.sh --dev

Note: After installation, you'll need to scan the QR code with your mobile WhatsApp to connect.

Launch Karere from your applications menu or run:

flatpak run io.github.tobagin.karere

The application will load WhatsApp Web and provide native desktop integration.

Access preferences through the application menu or keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+,) to configure:

• General: Theme selection, developer tools
• Accessibility: Keyboard shortcuts, focus indicators, high contrast, reduced motion, zoom settings, screen reader optimization
• Notifications: Native notification preferences, preview settings, background notifications
• Spell Checking: Multi-language spell checking with auto-detect

• Ctrl+, - Open Preferences
• Ctrl+Q - Quit Application
• F1 - Show Keyboard Shortcuts Help

• Ctrl++ - Zoom In
• Ctrl+- - Zoom Out
• Ctrl+0 - Reset Zoom

• Ctrl+Shift+D - Open Developer Tools
• Ctrl+R - Reload Page

• Ctrl+F - Find in Chat
• Ctrl+Shift+F - Search Chats

Karere includes comprehensive accessibility support:

• Screen Reader Support: Full ARIA labels and semantic HTML
• Keyboard Navigation: Complete keyboard-only navigation with visible focus indicators
• High Contrast Mode: Automatic detection and adaptation
• Reduced Motion: Respects system reduce-motion preferences
• Configurable Shortcuts: All keyboard shortcuts can be enabled/disabled
• Focus Management: 82 focusable elements in a logical focus chain

Karere is built using modern GNOME technologies:

• Vala: Primary programming language for type safety and productivity
• GTK4: Modern toolkit with excellent Wayland support
• LibAdwaita: Native GNOME design language and components
• WebKitGTK 6.0: Efficient web rendering engine
• Blueprint: Declarative UI definition language
• Flatpak: Secure application distribution

Karere is designed with privacy in mind:

• Sandboxed: Runs in a Flatpak sandbox with minimal permissions
• Opt-in Telemetry: All logging and crash reporting is disabled by default
• Local Storage: Uses standard user data directories, no external services
• Transparent: Open source code available for audit

Due to compatibility limitations between WebKitGTK and WhatsApp Web, video attachments are currently not supported. This is a platform-level limitation that affects all WebKitGTK-based browsers (including GNOME Web/Epiphany).

What works:

• ✅ Text messages
• ✅ Image attachments
• ✅ Document attachments
• ✅ Audio messages
• ✅ Downloading videos sent by others

This limitation is being tracked and will be resolved if/when WebKitGTK adds better support for WhatsApp Web's video processing APIs.

There is a known issue with MPRIS and WebKit that causes a bug on Karere! See WebKit Bug 282000.

As a workaround you can disable MPRIS for the application of your interest. To do this, create the file /etc/dbus-1/session.d/block-karere-mpris.conf with this content:

<busconfig>
  <policy context="mandatory">
    <deny own_prefix="org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.io.github.tobagin.karere"/>
  </policy>
</busconfig>

Note: This will block all instances of Karere from registering on MPRIS, because it uses the own_prefix prefix which also covers Sandboxed instances. It requires a system reboot or session restart to work.

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on:

• Setting up your development environment
• Code style and conventions
• Testing and building
• Submitting pull requests
• Reporting bugs and feature requests

For questions or discussions, please use GitHub Discussions.

Karere is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. See LICENSE for the full license text.

• Bug Reports: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

• GNOME Project: For the excellent GTK4 and LibAdwaita frameworks
• WebKitGTK Team: For the efficient web rendering engine
• WhatsApp Inc.: For WhatsApp Web
• Vala Community: For the productive programming language

Main Window	About Dialog

Preferences	Shortcuts

Karere - Native WhatsApp Web client for Linux desktop environments.