The chat application officially announces new features

WhatsApp chats are full of small, often unimportant messages in no time. How can you get the order in there? The creators of messengers have come up with something.

“Most of what we send doesn’t have to last forever.” With this discovery, WhatsApp has introduced a new feature. The new feature is called “expiring messages” and allows the sender to determine that a new message they sent disappears from a chat after seven days. Other messengers call these features “Vanishing Bus” – a bit more martial – often “self-destructive messages”.

Hades interesting

With the new feature, the irrelevant and the inconsiderate are deleted from a chat almost automatically like anything that has a half-life, like a shopping list or messages like “I’ll be there!” or “Come a little later, sorry”.

In a personal chat, each of the two participants can activate or deactivate current messages. In groups, this is for administrators only. The new feature is expected to be available on all devices during the month of November.

Running messages must be activated individually for each chat. In the respective chat, tap on the contact’s name, then on “Messages expiring”, then on “Next” or “Continue”. And finally choose “On”.

Not for private people

WhatsApp strongly advises against using the function for secrets or similar. You should only communicate this to people you trust. The reason is that you can forward expiring messages at any time before they disappear or take a screenshot of them – or a photo of course – to save them.

Also: when replying in WhatsApp, the previously sent message is quoted. In the event of a reply to an expiring message, the quoted text may still remain in the chat after seven days. And: If an expiring message is forwarded to a chat where expiring messages are turned off, the message doesn’t disappear there.

Special case of media sent

The media sent in chat disappear with the respective messages running. However, they remain stored on the device if automatic download is enabled. This function can be disabled in “Settings / Data and memory usage”.

If a user creates a backup before a message intended for him disappears, it will be saved there. According to WhatsApp, however, it disappears as soon as it restores the backup.