Chennai: Facebook-owned instant messaging application WhatsApp has come up with its new exciting disappearing messages feature which, once enabled, will make new messages sent in individual or group chats disappear after a week.
The details available on the FAQ page, which were first spotted by WhatsApp beta tracker WABetaInfo, shows that WhatsApp’s disappearing messages feature will be restricted to a seven-day period. Users won’t have the option to customise the interval for disappearing messages from their end, unlike on competing services like Telegram. It is also unlike the initial version of the feature that surfaced last year on a public beta release of WhatsApp for Android. That version had specific time intervals for making a particular message disappear.
WhatsApp has noted that the new feature won’t affect messages you previously sent or received on the instant messaging app. Also, in case a user doesn’t open WhatsApp within the seven-day period, the preview of the disappearing message may also still be displayed in notifications until the app is opened. However, the message won’t be available in the chat.
“When you reply to a message, the initial message is quoted. If you reply to a disappearing message, the quoted text might remain in the chat after seven days. If a disappearing message is forwarded to a chat with disappearing messages off, the message won’t disappear in the forwarded chat,” Wabetainfo reported.
With this, if a user does not open Whatsapp in the seven-day period, the message will disappear, but its preview might still be displayed in notifications until the App is opened.
The feature, as per the App, will not work if the disappearing message is forwarded, and in case the user creates a backup, however, when the user restores from a backup.