> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://plivo.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Send Text Messages

> Handle inbound WhatsApp messages and user interactions via Plivo

## Overview

This guide shows how to send a non-templated WhatsApp text message to a destination WhatsApp number using our APIs. Follow these instructions:

## Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — [sign up](https://cx.plivo.com/signup) with your work email address if you don’t have one already. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to [set up a Java development environment](/sdk/server/java-sdk).

Non-templated WhatsApp messages can be sent as a reply to a user-initiated conversation (Service conversation) or if there is an existing ongoing conversation created previously by sending a templated WhatsApp message.

## Create the send WhatsApp application

Create a file called `send_whatsapp.java` and paste into it this code.

```java theme={null}
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.Collections;

import com.plivo.api.Plivo;
import com.plivo.api.exceptions.PlivoRestException;
import com.plivo.api.models.message.Message;
import com.plivo.api.models.message.MessageCreateResponse;
import com.plivo.api.models.message.MessageType;

class MessageCreate
{
public static void main(String [] args)
{
Plivo.init("<auth_id>","<auth_token>");
try
{
MessageCreateResponse response = Message.creator("+14151112221","14151112222",
"Hello, this is a test message")
.type(MessageType.WHATSAPP)
.url(new URL("https://<yourdomain>.com/sms_status/") )
.create();
System.out.println(response);
// Prints only the message_uuid
System.out.println(response.getMessageUuid());
}

catch (PlivoRestException | IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
```

Replace the auth placeholders with your authentication credentials from the [Plivo console](https://cx.plivo.com/home). Replace the phone number placeholders with actual phone numbers in [E.164 format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164) (for example, +12025551234).

`src`

should be a phone number registered against your WhatsApp Business Account.

`dst`

should be the destination WhatsApp number that you want to receive the message.

Text is passed using the

`text`

parameter. For details about this param, refer to our [documentation](/messaging/quickstart/node-quickstart/).

<Note>
  <strong>Note:</strong> We recommend that you store your credentials in the `auth_id` and `auth_token` environment variables to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch the values from the environment variables. You can use `process.env` to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.
</Note>

## Test

Save the file and run it.

<Note>
  <strong>Note:</strong> If you’re using a Plivo Trial account, you can send messages only to phone numbers that have been verified with Plivo. You can verify (sandbox) a number by going to the console’s Phone Numbers > <a href="https://cx.plivo.com/home">Sandbox Numbers</a> page.
</Note>