Boss personally announces something new for WhatsApp – multimedia

In 2020 WhatsApp has the self-erasing messages presented for the first time. Since then, it has been possible to specify in Messenger that certain messages, pictures or videos automatically disappear after a certain period of time. This can be useful if sensitive information such as passwords, bank accounts or suggestive pictures are sent that you do not want to be seen in the chat history for eternity.

Now WhatsApp has revised this function, as Meta boss (formerly known as Facebook) Mark Zuckerberg announced in a Facebook post. “Today we are launching a new option for self-deleting messages, with which you can specify that all new chats disappear by default after 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days. Not all messages have to be viewable forever,” it says there.

Different time periods

In addition, Zuckerberg shares a screenshot of a WhatsApp chat with his wife. On it you can see the note: “You have activated self-deleting messages. After they have been sent, all new messages remain in this chat for 24 hours and then disappear again.”

If you want to set up the self-deleting messages for your WhatsApp account, you can do this in the privacy settings of your profile as soon as the new update is installed. This new option is automatically applied to all new chats and no longer has to be set individually for each chat. With new group chats, too, users can redefine that the messages delete themselves after a certain period of time.

As can be read from Zuckerberg’s post, it will now also be possible to define two more time periods for the deletion of the messages. Previously, this was automatically set to seven days. Users can now also choose between 24 hours and 90 days. However, caution still applies: WhatsApp does not inform the sender of a self-deleting message if the recipient takes a screenshot of the message or the picture.