WhatsApp's Disappearing Messages recently allowed its users to set all of their new chat conversations to self-destruct by default.
In this photo illustration taken on November 6, 2020, a user updates Facebook's WhatsApp application on his mobile phone in Mumbai. - WhatsApp on November 6 entered an increasingly tense battle between multi-national giants such as Google and AliBaba for a chunk of India's fast growing digital payments market.
WhatsApp Disappearing Messages
Although the Disappearing Messages feature of Meta's WhatsApp has been existing for a year now, it is only by now that the messaging app allowed its users to enable it by default.
Previously, WhatsApp users could only manually set the self-destruct function to a specific chat conversation.
On top of that, when the feature debuted in 2020, users were only limited to self-destruct messages after seven days had passed, as per the news story by The Verge.
However, later on, the Meta-own messaging service went on to announce that it is expanding the options for its Disappearing Messages feature, allowing them to set it as far as 90 days and as short as a day, which is basically 24 hours.
Now, the said feature on WhatsApp could be automatically enabled for all future conversations in the app.
WhatsApp Disappearing Messages: How to Enable by Default
That said, here's how to set the Disappearing Messages function of the Meta-owned messaging platform by default for all your future conversations in the app.
- Open WhatsApp on either an Android or iOS device.
- Then, go to the Settings section of the app.
- Then, select Account.
- Tap on Privacy.
- After which, select the Default message timer.
- Lastly, set the timer to either 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days.
And that's it. All of your new chat convo should self-destruct by default depending on the timer that you have selected.
It is worth noting that by doing so, old conversations will not be affected by the new settings. Instead, only all of the new chats will enable the feature by default.
However, even if the self-destruct function is on by default, all group chats, even newly created ones, will not be affected by it.
Nevertheless, WhatsApp further announced that the feature will soon be available for group conversations as well in the future updates of the messaging app. But in the meantime, it would not be included yet.
On top of that, WhatsApp also clarified that the new default settings of the said feature are available across all of its platforms, such as iOS, Android, and its desktop clients for the web, PC, and macOS.
How to Enable WhatsApp Disappearing Messages to Old Chats
As mentioned, the said feature will only be turned on by default to all the newly created chats in the messaging app.
However, there is a way to enable it for older conversations, albeit manually, as per The Next Web.
- Open the WhatsApp chat that you want to self-destruct.
- Then, tap on the name of your contact.
- Select "Disappearing messages."
- Next, choose from the timer options.
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Written by Teejay Boris
