Make your message disappear on WhatsApp? Soon it will be possible
You can have your messages disappear on WhatsApp soon. This does not mean that you delete them yourself, but that you give them a kind of best before date. However, it doesn’t work like Snapchat: you can’t make people see a particular photo for a very short time. In any case, this option is not necessarily very useful for sexting: anyone can take screenshots.
Not suitable for sexting
That seems contradictory: after all, the idea of a message that is only available x number of minutes or seconds is that it is no longer seen. Being able to take a screenshot means that the message can last forever. On the other hand, the possibility is not yet fully official: this is only found in the FAQ section of the messaging site.
Moreover, as it seems, the service is not intended for this kind of short-lived and somewhat risky information. The idea is that your messages, photos and videos will be deleted after seven days. So it’s a feature that you can turn on on all of your messages and seems more like a handy filing option. You turn it on per chat, but in group conversations it is only up to the administrator whether or not to enable the option.
Shelf life messages on WhatsApp
Although it is a lot different than you might expect, the new feature offers a bit more peace of mind for people who would rather not have their messages left somewhere. Of course someone can take a screenshot, but it is in any case nice that there is a standard delete moment after a week. For example, for safety’s sake, people who delete all their chats every week only need to enable the option to have that happen automatically.
Keep in mind that when the new option goes live, photos and videos will also be deleted. Make sure you have downloaded it to your phone so that you can still see it. It is also unknown to what extent the new option is adjustable. So whether you can – temporarily – put a very short expiration date on it, or whether it really only concerns a week. We hope for the latter, because while the screenshot option makes it exciting, it can still be very funny to make a message only viewable for a certain period of time.