WhatsApp recently introduced a “disappearing messages” feature that allows users to set their new WhatsApp chats to disappear automatically after 7 days.
WhatsApp understands that not all conversations are important to keep forever such as grocery lists, store locations, etc. The main purpose of introducing this feature is to give users peace of mind that conversations aren’t permanent and will disappear after 7 days automatically.
So, at any point in time, for any WhatsApp contact, you can easily turn on or off disappearing messages by opening the WhatsApp profile of that contact. You can anytime turn on or off disappearing messages according to your needs. Let’s learn how to set your WhatsApp chats to disappear automatically after 7 days.
How to Turn On/Off Disappearing Messages For Any WhatsApp Contact?
Once the disappearing messages are enabled for a contact, all your messages sent to that contact will disappear after 7 days automatically. You or the person you’re chatting with can enable or disable disappearing messages for the chat at any time. Let’s see how:
- First of all, make sure you’re using the latest version of WhatsApp Messenger.
- Open WhatsApp and tap on the contact’s name to open the profile.
- Tap the Disappearing messages option.
- Tap Continue for the Getting Started popup.
- And finally, tap the On or Off button to enable or disable the feature.
That’s it. This is how you can easily set your WhatsApp messages to disappear automatically after 7 days for any individual chat. In the case of a group chat, only the group admins can enable or disable disappearing messages. Also, remember that the messages sent or received before enabling the disappearing messages feature won’t be affected.
Important Things to Know About Disappearing Messages
As you just read, enabling and disabling disappearing messages for a WhatsApp chat is very easy. But, before you turn on or off this feature, you should know all the basics of this new WhatsApp feature.
- If you’ve enabled disappearing messages for contact but the user doesn’t open WhatsApp for 7 days, the messages will disappear. But, the notification of the message might be displayed in the notification bar along with a preview of the message until WhatsApp is opened.
- If you reply to a disappearing message, the quoted text might remain in the chat even after 7 days.
- If a disappearing message is forwarded to a chat in which disappearing messages are turned off, the message won’t disappear in the forwarded chat even after 7 days.
- Users can still make a backup of disappearing messages as well as take screenshots to access them even after 7 days. So, you should use disappearing messages only with trusted contacts.
- If disappearing messages are turned on, media will also disappear in the chat after 7 days. But, if it’s downloaded in your device memory, it can be available on your phone even after 7 days.
That’s all about disappearing messages on WhatsApp. You can easily turn on or off disappearing messages for any WhatsApp individual or group chat.
