Whatsapp Claim:

Right after you link a device, your primary phone sends an end-to-end encrypted copy of your most recent message history to your newly linked device, where it’s stored locally. It can take a few minutes for your message history to appear on linked devices depending on the number of messages in your chats.

And

Note: Not all messages and chats are synced to linked devices from your phone.

source: https://faq.whatsapp.com/653480766448040

I was using WhatsApp on both my phone and laptop (App installed on macbook).

Here’s what happened:

1. Phone goes offline: I turned off data on my phone.
2. Message sent from laptop: I sent a message to a friend from laptop.
3. Laptop disconnects: I then disconnected my laptop from the internet too!
4. Surprise message! When I turned my phone’s data back on, I received the message I sent from the laptop.

How did my phone receive that message if it’s expected to come from another device that was offline?

Does that mean the message was stored on server? That makes sense because the message was supposed to come from the laptop to server and then my phone.

I tried it multiple times, every time it gets delivered on phone, and vice versa.

I am trying to understand how it works.