WhatsApp has confirmed that there will be an added ability to send self-destructing messages in order to add an extra layer of security for users. We all know Facebook has had quite a few issues with that over the years. Any message that you set to self destruct is only available for seven days. The rumour about this new feature had started November last year and has now been made official. On the WhatsApp FAQ website, you can see that it says you can send messages that disappear on WhatsApp by enabling disappearing messages.
While the feature isn’t available quite yet, it is said that it should start rolling out to users soon. In order to activate the messages feature, all you have to. do is open the chat you want to enable the feature in. Tap on the contacts name and then you should see an option called “Disappearing Messages”. When you tap that, you can press Continue. After that, select on/off.
What happens when you activate Disappearing Messages?
There are a few rules when it comes to using the Disappearing Messages. If a person doesn’t use WhatsApp for the seven days the message is visible, it still gets deleted. However, the contents of those messages are still able to come up in the contacts notifications. Next, the disappearing message may show the original message when it is quoted – even after the seven day period. Finally, if a disappearing message is forwarded to a chat that has disappearing messages off, the disappearing message won’t be deleted.
Disappearing messages are also saved in people’s backups if they choose to back up their chats. However, the disappearing messages will be deleted when the person restores the backup.
Of course, we can’t forget about screenshots. Even if you have disappearing messages on, it doesn’t stop people receiving the message(s) from screenshotting. You still may want to be careful about what you say.
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