WhatsApp has announced a new feature that will let users save disappearing messages called Keep In Chat. While it sounds like it may render the disappearing messages redundant, the feature will actually require the green light from the person who sent the message, so the choice is still in the hands of the sender.
The ability to save disappearing messages has been seen in development since last May and now the feature is officially launching for all users. As you may be aware, WhatsApp allows you to set certain chats with a timer to make messages disappear or even set a global timer for all your messages to disappear after a set amount of time.
Keep In Chat lets users keep disappearing messages as long as the set duration has not yet passed. However, the sender will be notified if any user in an individual or group chat has kept a disappearing message and they will be able to “unkeep” it if they wish to.
Kept messages will be visible to everyone in the group, with all the messages grouped in a “Kept messages” folder and will be noted with a bookmark icon. If the sender unkeeps a message, no one will be able to keep it again and it will disappear once the timer runs out.
Senders will have 30 days from when a message is kept to decide if they want to unkeep it. Additionally, group admins can limit the feature so that it can only be used by admins only by changing the admin settings.
Keep In Chat is rolling out globally to all users over the next few weeks. Other new features recently released include new security measures for transferring chats and the ability to link up to four secondary Android devices with Companion Mode.
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