WhatsApp launches disappearing messages feature, here’s everything to know about it

WhatsApp disappearing messages: Disappearing messages feature on WhatsApp! Facebook-owned instant messaging app WhatsApp will be releasing its much hyped feature of disappearing messages this month. With this, users would be able to send messages to their friends and have those messages be automatically deleted after seven days. While the users would be allowed to enable this feature in personal chats, as far as groups are concerned, only the admins would have the control over enabling it.

The feature can be helpful for users to clear a clutter of their chats once some messages like grocery lists or addresses have served their purposes. It can also give the users the added peace of knowing that not all of their conversations are permanent. Moreover, the feature also gives enough time for users to make sense of the chat and carry on and complete the conversation before the messages are deleted.

WhatsApp features: Disappearing messages vs delete for everyone

It is a step ahead of the feature allowing users to delete messages for everyone. While the delete for everyone feature allows users to delete a wrongly sent message for all chat participants within a given time frame, the recipients still can see that a message has been deleted. The functionality of the new feature is slightly different, as it is meant for messages the sender wants the recipient to see, but does not want to make it visible forever.

While the functionality is different, several users had been using the delete for everyone feature for the purpose of making messages fleeting. However, to achieve that purpose, the users had to delete the messages within an hour itself. Now, with the help of the disappearing messages feature, users would not have to remember to delete a message, and the message itself can remain longer in the chat conversation before disappearing.

How will disappearing messages feature work?

With this feature, users would not only be able to make messages disappear, but also videos and images.

Once the feature has been enabled, the messages, images and videos would disappear for both the parties, in case of personal chats, and for all the users in case of a group chat. If someone wants to preserve the messages, they can either take screenshots or copy the messages while they are still visible.

The feature would have to be enabled for every group or every contact, as there is no umbrella enabling option. It would be available as an option in the contact section of every WhatsApp friend once the feature has been rolled out by the instant messaging platform.

Users also need to make note that enabling the feature would not make previously sent messages or media disappear, and it would only affect the messages sent after it has been enabled by either party of a personal chat or by the admin of a group.