How To Quickly Install WeChat on Linux
WeChat is very popular mobile messaging app developed by Tencent in China. It supports text and voice messages, group chat, sending files. A web version is also available. Electronic WeChat is a third-party WeChat client which uses the Electron framework to package the Web WeChat. In this tutorial we will look at how to quickly install Electronic WeChat on Linux.
How to Quickly Install WeChat on Linux via Snap Package
Wechat is in the snap store, which means you can install it by using the snap command. But before that, you need to make sure your system has snapd (snap daemon) installed. You can install snapd by running the following commands, depending on your Linux distribution.
Debian 9 / Ubuntu 16.04/18.04 /Linux Mint / Elementary OS
sudo apt install snapd
Fedora
sudo dnf install snapd
Arch Linux / Manjaro
sudo pacman -S snapd
Once snapd is installed, run the following command to install Wechat from the snap store.
sudo snap install electronic-wechat
After it’s installed, open Wechat from your application menu, then scan the QR code to login.
Snap packages are automatically updated in the background. If you want to manually update packages, then run this command:
sudo snap refresh
How To Install Electronic Wechat on Linux via Tarball
This is a traditional way to install Wechat on Linux. Go to github and download the tar.gz file. Choose linux-x64.tar.gz or linux-ia32.tar.gz according to your OS architecture. Once downloaded, open a terminal window and navigate to the download folder where the tar.gz file is located. Then issue the following command to extract it.
tar xvf linux-x64.tar.gz
or
tar xvf linux-ia32.tar.gz
Once it’s extracted, go to electronic-wechat-linux-x64 or electronic-wechat-linux-ia32 folder, then run this command to open Wechat.
./electronic-wechat
You will see the following.
What we need to now is to log into WeChat on our phone (Install WeChat mobile app if you haven’t already done so.) then go to Discover > Scan QR Code to scan the above QR code and confirm login with the desktop client. You need to scan this QR code only once.
I can enter Chinese characters without any problem.
To make our file system clean, we can move the folder to /opt/ directory.
sudo mv electronic-wechat-linux-x64/ /opt/
or
sudo mv electronic-wechat-linux-ia32/ /opt/
Then make a symbolic link.
sudo ln -s /opt/electronic-wechat-linux-x64/electronic-wechat /usr/bin/wechat
or
sudo ln -s /opt/electronic-wechat-linux-ia32/electronic-wechat /usr/bin/wechat
So now we just need to press ALT+F2 and enter wechat command to launch the WeChat client on Linux.
PS: WeChat also has a web client, which is available at https://wx.qq.com/
I am the owner of this project. Thanks so much for your tutorial. Great work!
Nice to hear from you!
If use proxy, how to setup or configure?
Or still not support to use proxy?
I got new account and cant log in and get message about dangerous of new account or something. What have to do, now?
so, this does not work anymore with new accounts, is there a way to get it to work?
I wish the desktop version of WeChat was able to login without qr code scan. I have an older nokia smart phone with an older mobile version of WeChat that does not support qr code scanning. I also hope future WeChat can support screenshot image taker like line does. Also no video chat/voice chat : / Overall compared to other desktop messaging clients I give WeChat 5.5 out of 10
After all this is just the WeChat web client packaged with Electron framework.
Also FYI You can download and install Wechat for windows 2.0 on Ubuntu if you have the newest version of wine installed on Ubuntu. I just did it, and like this better since it has the feature to send audio messages. Everything works fine.
Thanks! I will look into it.
I tried to install Wechat for windows in both wine 1.8 and wine 1.9 with no good results. I can not enter text or send screeshot/files.
i’ve always had better luck installing windows programs with either playonLinux or crossover (#1 option)
could you please elaborate how to ‘Go to dist/Electronic WeChat-linux-x64’?
1. I can go to the folder with the .gz file
2. however, I couldn’t find the new dist using ‘cd dist/Electronic WeChat-linux-x64’ right after finishing ‘tar xvf linux-x64.tar.gz’ command
3. sorry for the naive question, a newbie for linux…
Thanks!
This post was written on April 20, 2016. Electronic Wechat has updated to V1.3.0 on May 19, 2016. So the old instructions in this post is not working. I have updated my post.
BTW, thanks for your question, otherwise I would still not know Electronic WeChat has an update.
BTW, thanks for your question, otherwise I would still not know Electronic WeChat has an update.
Worked on Ubuntu 16.04. Thanks for the tutorial!
I have been using this method without fail on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-bit. Today, though, when the QR code is supposed to come up, I get an error message instead (specifically你在使用非官方微信. 可能存在安全隐患）When I click on the only button in the window, it takes me to an Apple wechat download. In other words, it no longer works. Anyone else?
Worked on Ubuntu 12.04. Thanks for the tutorial!
Thanks a lot for “copy-paste how to”.
Thanks, saved my life!!! 😀
Of course you think it would 🤣 cheaters always going to find a way to cheat. Good thing Brittany Johnson is dumb as a nail. Congratulations you finally found your match Jason.
Be sure to virus scan…
Cool tut, thanks!
I got new account and cant log in and get message about dangerous of new account or something. Anyone can help with that?
No log in to wechat on linux anymore. Why?
There is no wechat folder inside /usr/bin/
./electronic-wechat command does not work on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Hi, you can now easily install wechat by running the following command:
On Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, it fails to install electronic-wechat, returned with below error:
# snap install electronic-wechat
error: cannot install “electronic-wechat”: Post https://api.snapcraft.io/v2/snaps/refresh:
proxyconnect tcp: tls: oversized record received with length 20527
Any idea how to fix it? Thanks.
Looks like your are using proxy, but it’s not working.
please. can anybody help me to install with opensuse
1203For account security, newly registered WeChat accounts are unable to log in to Web WeChat. To use WeChat on a computer, use Windows WeChat or Mac WeChat at http://wechat.com
how to change menu language from chinese to english?
I have written a tutorial on how to install the official WeChat for PC on Ubuntu/Linux using Wine:
https://ferrolho.github.io/blog/2018-12-22/wechat-desktop-on-linux
That’s great.
Doesent work for Manjaro
After installing the wechat through snap, I cannot find it in my application menu. I running debian linux.
Maybe you need to re-login?
Yes. Its working. Better to write this in steps.
Doesn’t work with new accounts. Wechat does not allow new users to login through web client. Anyway to masquerade as windows or Mac or Android application?
9 Sept 2019, about 14:00 hour, I was successful installing electronic-wechat through snap on Ubuntu 18.04, and WeChat app icon appeared on the menu, so I clicked the icon to login by scanning the QR code. After scanning and pressing “login” button on my mobile phone account, I got an error message on the Web screen saying that WaChat for web on a computer is available on Windows or Mac.
See habib’s and andy’s comments above.
Follow this github tutorial and script
https://github.com/qo6xup6/ubuntu-deepin-wechat
I’m using PopOS 20.04 it works flawlessly, and in PopOS 20.10 have a little bit problem when installing wechat.deb, so I bypass it and create folder ~/.deepinwine/Deepin-WeChat.
Quote: “After scanning and pressing “login” button on my mobile phone account, I got an error message”. The same, and didn’t solve.
Now use Linux Deepin, it has two working versions. One is Wechat(Wine) and another is mobile version. Yes! It is already possibel to use some Android APP there. IMHO, Ubunty users can try Ubunty Kylin version 微信（Wine）:
https://www.ubuntukylin.com/applications/119-cn.html
(I didn’t tried, because have it in Deepin work well)
I was able to install it on Ubuntu 18.04 and run the client WeChat on my pc, but failed to log in my account from my pc. After I scaned the QR barcode, the comfirm login window appeared on my iPad with an error message saying service unavailable for this account. Any idea what caused this error and how to fix it? Thank you for your help!
This program relies on the Web Wechat service, which has been shut down. This was the same service that let you log on to Wechat in a web browser.
I was just able to log in to Wechat via installing the Windows version using PlayOnLinux. Remember if you are using a VPN you may need to configure your local proxy in PlayOnLinux, under SETTINGS>INTERNET
Unlike my previous attempts at Wechat in Wine, video actually works! I think that may have been GPU driver problems. I was on first Intel, then Raspberry Pi before (Wechat works on RPi in Twister OS apart from video!) I’m on AMD/Nvidia now.
Moments isn’t working fully.