Brace yourself as your screenshot album may soon be loaded with WhatsApp conversations!
As the instant messaging application constantly evolve, the new privacy features will set messages to disappear in 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days from the time they are sent, depending on the options you select.
Doesn’t this remind you of Snapchat?
However, this new feature will only affect new messages and not previous messages that you have sent or received.
Here’s what you should know
In your individual chats, you can turn the disappearing messages on or off and the same thing applies to your multiple group chats. Keep in mind that in a group chat, the admin, however, can still set the group settings to only allow the admin himself/herself to turn the disappearing messages on or off.
It is also important to note that the feature is not foolproof as the person from the other end can always screenshot or forward your messages before they disappear.
You may have some lingering thoughts about how the feature works, and here’s the explanation.
- The initial message is always quoted when you reply to the message. But if you reply to a disappearing message, the initial message might still remain in the chat even after the duration you select.
- The message will retain and NOT disappear in the forwarded chat if you forward a disappearing message to another party with the feature turned off.
- If a user creates a backup before a message disappears, the disappearing message will be included in the backup. Disappearing messages will be deleted when a user restores from a backup.
- The messages will disappear from a chat IF a user does not turn on WhatsApp in 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days. However, the preview of the messages may still appear on the home screen until the application is turned on.
As of now, not all users are able to turn on the feature yet. In the meantime, if you wish to use the feature, Android users can visit this link while iPhone users can refer to this link for more information. To get general information about this feature, you may visit Whatsapp’s official website.
Perhaps not all messages are meant to stick around forever!
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