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How to use the LINE app outside Thailand
Updated
In Thailand, LINE is how almost everyone messages: friends, family, shops, bars, everyone. Most visitors install it on the trip, often against a Thai tourist SIM, and discover at home that it is a slightly different app from the WhatsApp they are used to. This guide covers the settings that matter once you are home, so that you do not lose the conversation and the people in it.
LINE's menus move around between versions and between iPhone and Android, so the steps below describe where things usually live rather than every tap. If a setting is not where this says, it is usually one level away under Settings.
LINE works anywhere
LINE is not a Thai-only app. It runs worldwide, over Wi-Fi or mobile data, and messages and voice or video calls to other LINE users cost nothing beyond your data. You do not need a Thai number to keep using it, and you do not need to be in Thailand.
What you do need is for your account to survive the trip home.
The Thai SIM problem
LINE accounts are tied to a phone number. If you set LINE up with a Thai tourist SIM, that number will expire, often within a month or two of your last top-up. While your phone stays signed in, nothing happens. The trouble comes later: a new phone, a reinstall, or a forced sign-out, and LINE sends a code to a number that no longer exists.
Fix it now, while it still works:
- Change the number to your home one. In Settings, under Account, there is a phone number option. Change it to your own number and confirm with the code LINE sends.
- Add an email address and password. Also under Account. It gives you a second way back in.
- Check which sign-ins are linked. If your account is linked to an Apple or Google sign-in, that can help too, but do not rely on it alone.
Once your home number and an email are on the account, the Thai SIM can lapse without taking your friends list with it.
Back up your chats
LINE keeps your friends list on its servers, but your chat history lives on your phone. Lose the phone without a backup and the history is gone, even if the account survives.
In Settings, under Chats, there is a chat history backup option. On Android it backs up to Google Drive, on iPhone to iCloud. Turn on automatic backup if your version offers it, or back up by hand before any phone change. Moving between an iPhone and an Android phone may bring only recent history across, so back up first and do not wipe the old phone until the new one has everything.
Moving to a new phone
Newer versions of LINE have an account transfer option that uses a QR code shown on the old phone and scanned by the new one. If you have both phones, use it. If the old phone is gone, sign in on the new phone with your number or email, then restore your chat backup.
Do not sign in on a second phone "to try it" while the first is still in use. LINE runs one account on one phone at a time (a computer or tablet can be added alongside), and signing in on a second phone signs the first one out.
Adding friends
There are three common ways:
- QR code. Under Add friends, you can show your own QR code or scan hers. This is how most people swap LINE in person.
- LINE ID. If she has set one and allows people to find her by it, you can search it under Add friends.
- Phone number. LINE can suggest friends from your contacts, if both of you allow it in your settings.
Take a screenshot of her QR code, or write her ID down somewhere that is not your phone. It is the cheapest insurance there is. The lost LINE guide covers what to do if it is already too late.
Calls
Voice and video calls between LINE users are free over data and work well between Thailand and most countries. Mind the time difference: Thailand is UTC+7 all year, which is six or seven hours ahead of the UK, and eleven or twelve ahead of the US East Coast. The time difference guide has the table. The video call guide covers the rest.
Notifications and quiet hours
Her messages will often arrive while you sleep: from Europe, her late morning is your small hours, and from the Americas, her whole afternoon is. Rather than muting her, set your phone's own quiet hours or sleep focus so messages wait silently until morning. Then answer when you wake, which from Europe is her afternoon, the best time anyway.
Staying safe on LINE
- Be wary of anyone new who says they are her friend, her sister or her manager and asks for money, a phone top-up or a code sent to your phone. Check with her first, in the chat you already had. The fake profiles guide has more.
- Never share a LINE verification code with anyone. It is how accounts are taken over.
- Set a passcode in LINE's privacy settings if other people use your phone.
Translation
LINE's own translation options vary by country and version, and none of them removes the work entirely. The LINE translate guide goes through what each option actually involves.
The other route is to keep LINE for the moments it is good at and use a translated messenger for the conversation itself. On this site you write in your own language and she reads Thai on her phone, on LINE or in her own app, with nothing for her to set up. Your conversations belong to your account rather than your phone, so a lost handset or an expired SIM loses nothing. How it works has the details.
Want to write to her in your own language? Read How it works, then Start free. Her replies are always free to read.