Benefit of WhatsApp’s Disappearing Messages Feature

Lately, disappearing messages have been the hottest recent feature in social media apps like WhatsApp and Signal. But why? What are disappearing messages? What would you need them for? And how does it work?

WhatsApp’s disappearing messages is a feature you can toggle that erases messages between two individuals or between a group after a certain amount of time that is set by the user.

To find out more about why disappearing messages could be useful to you, read the information below.

What is the Disappearing Feature for?

The entire purpose of the disappearing feature in social media apps such as WhatsApp, is privacy. If you have snoopy family, you can make sure messages between you and either another individual or an entire group.

The secondary benefit of this feature is clearing the clutter in all of your chats. 99% of the time we don’t need to keep our messages and won’t go back to look at them, so the disappearing feature is great for taking care of that problem.

If you find yourself having to revisit messages, maybe from coworkers or people you’re working on a project with, you can turn off the disappearing messages feature.

How do You Use the WhatsApp disappearing feature?

Chatting With One Other Person

• For both iPhone and Android phone users the steps to activate/deactivate disappearing messages are as follows:

1. Open the WhatsApp…app
2. Click on your intended contact’s name
3. Click on “disappearing messages”
4. Click “continue,” if asked
5. Toggle the feature to on or off
6. If turning the feature on, select the amount of time a message has before disappearing

Chatting in a Group

If you are in a group chat, anyone can turn on disappearing messages, but the admin of the group can change the settings so that only they can turn on that feature.

The steps to enable or disable the disappearing messaging are the same with individuals, except that you click on the group name.

If you are the administrator, you can change the settings to allow/disallow anyone in the group to enable the feature

For Android:

1. Tap and hold the group in your chats
2. Tap “More Options,” then “Group Info.”
3. Click “Group Settings,” then “Edit Group Info.”
4. Choose whether all members or only admins can edit the group info.
5. Click OK

For iPhone:

1. Open the WhatsApp group chat
2. Swipe your group to the left of the chats tab
3. Tap “More,” then “Group Info.”
4. Select “Group Settings,” then “Edit Group Info.”
5. Choose whether all members or only admins can edit the group info.

It’s important to note that people you’re messaging can still copy your message, take a picture, or take a screenshot and save it. This is useful if you don’t want to bother switching the feature off for the sake of one message.

Conclusion

With everything I’ve told you about disappearing messages, if you’re still wondering where this would be useful, I have one suggestion: Surprises.

Nothing is worse than planning a graduation, retirement, or birthday celebration and having the entire surprise ruined because the special guest saw a message about it.

Resources:

• How to turn on disappearing messages on WhatsApp (pocket-lint.com)
• WhatsApp Help Center - About disappearing messages
• Why Do WhatsApp Messages Disappear And What Are Disappearing Messages (guidingtech.com)