7 Whatsapp Features You Didn't Know About

1. Hidden message reading

This feature is useful when you do not want your interlocutors to know about your activity in the application. You can read the incoming message, while two confirmation checkboxes will not be displayed in the chat. To do this, go to "Settings" → "Account" / "Account" → "Privacy" and turn off the "Read Receipts" toggle switch.

There is also an alternative covert reading option. When a new message notification arrives on your phone, without launching the app, turn on Airplane Mode, and then open WhatsApp and view the chat. So you can read the text stored in memory, but the sender will not receive a notification about this.

2. Disappearing message with picture or video

If you want to send something important or funny to a friend, you can prevent the recipient from viewing and resaving the media file. After attaching a photo or video, click on the small button ① next to the text input line. After the first viewing of the file from the message, it will be immediately removed from the correspondence.

3. Recording a voice message in parts

This is a useful feature in a situation where you want to clearly plan the content of the message and fit all the information in one audio track. At the moment of activation of the recording, fix it with the corresponding upward gesture, and then press the pause button when you want to stop. The next piece can be recorded immediately after by clicking on the microphone icon.

Pause recording is also useful when composing messages to yourself if you use WhatsApp to save reminders and important ideas.

4. Sending a message without adding to contacts

This option is useful if the person is not in your address book and you do not plan to add him there. It also works for sending messages to yourself if you want to save something important. The function is more convenient to use through a computer browser, the system will redirect you to the web version of WhatsApp. So you can, for example, quickly transfer photos and videos to your smartphone.

To send a message, you need to open a browser and enter the address in the search bar https://wa.me/, and after the slash, add the recipient's number with the country code. If you want to write, say, to +7-917-999-99-99, then you need to start it with the number 7 - https://wa.me/79179999999.

5. Encrypted backup

Another useful feature of WhatsApp is to back up the contents of chats to the device memory and to the Google cloud server. But important information can not only be saved, but also encrypted from intruders. So you get not just a messenger, but a notebook with free data protection.

To activate end-to-end encryption, you need to go to the “Backup Chats” section in the settings, and then activate “Encrypted Copy”. Access to the contents of the copy can be protected with a familiar password or a 64-digit key, which should be kept in a safe place and printed on paper. These manipulations make it very difficult disclosure of your data strangers.

6. Sending a video file as a GIF animation

Sending a full video to the chat in some cases, for example, with a weak connection to the Network, is problematic. The function of converting video files into a sequence of pictures, which is built into the messenger, will come to the rescue, the processing of which will require fewer resources.

To convert video to animation, you need to select a file and switch the button from camera to GIF in the upper right corner under the timeline.

7. Cleaning storage and saving traffic

With daily active use of the messenger, the contents of chats can take up to several gigabytes in the smartphone’s storage, but this space can be easily cleared of unnecessary files.

In the WhatsApp settings, there is a "Data and storage" menu, which contains the "Manage storage" section. It displays the total share of the disk used by the application, and also collects a list of the occupied space by correspondence with each user separately. From all heavy chats, you can delete media files if necessary.

In the same menu "Data and storage" there is a section "Media download quality", where you can activate the item "Saving data traffic». Telecom operators are gradually getting rid of unlimited tariffs, so now it is especially important to monitor the consumption of the amount of traffic.