Just like in any other messaging apps, WhatsApp stores your chats till the time you delete them. The chats being stored on the device are often useful when you revisit them for various reasons like searching for a contact number, finding your friend’s address, or a picture from your ex. In other cases where the chats do not anymore serve a purpose once they have been read by the recipient, it is very important to delete them. This helps in keeping the inbox clean and the storage of the device free with space.
Fortunately, WhatsApp has a feature to automatically delete the chats after 7 days. This ensures the automatic deletion of the received messages from the device as they no longer have an importance in the recipient’s life.
WhatsApp’s Disappearing Messages Feature
The feature that does all that has been described above is called Disappearing Messages. If toggled on, this allows self-destructing all the messages and multimedia files from both the receiver’s as well as the sender’s end.
NOTE: Though disappearing messages clear the chat room, the media files might remain in the device’s storage.
Follow the below-given instructions to turn on disappearing messages for a person or a group and delete WhatsApp chats automatically.
- Make sure you have the latest version of Whatsapp installed on your device. If you don’t have it, install it from the Play Store or the App Store depending upon your device.
- Open WhatsApp and enter the private/group chat from the Chats tab that you wish to self-destruct.
- At the top of the screen, you will see the name of the recipient/group. Tap on it.
- Select Disappearing Messages.
- You will now have to select the On radio button to enable the feature.
You have now enabled the Disappearing Messages option for that particular chat. Just to confirm, you should see the below message in the chat room of the same recipient.
Whatever messages or media files you send from now on will be automatically deleted after 7 days. Not to mention, this would happen without giving you a warning beforehand. Although this feature brings in ease and convenience, there are a few things that you should keep in mind about the Disappearing Messages feature;
- Only the admins have the right to enable it in a group and not the other members. WhatsApp deletes the messages and the media files only and exactly after 7 days. There is no way to customize and set this time. as of now.
- Enabling Disappearing Messages for a person’s chats DOES NOT prevent them from exporting the chats, backing up the messages, or downloading and keeping the media files in the device’s storage. These will still be available to both parties.
- Messages sent and received before enabling this feature SHALL REMAIN UNAFFECTED. This means that they will act as normal messages only and NOT disappearing messages.
- Once enabled, the recipient gets notified about the enabling of disappearing messages for the chat room as well.
- There will be a small clock on the bottom-right corner of a person’s image if the feature is enabled for their chats.
- In situations where you wouldn’t want the disappearing messages to remain active, you can always follow the same steps as described above and disable the option.
- This auto-delete feature in WhatsApp is for temporary or unimportant conversations only. Refrain from using it on private or confidential chats.
- In case you accidentally deleted WhatsApp chats, you can follow our detailed guide on how to recover deleted WhatsApp messages with or without Google Drive Backup
The lesson for today ends here, fellow student! We have transferred to you the skills required to consistently keep your inbox free from garbage chats and those annoying group messages. You possess a power you should be proud of. Make use of it in the best way possible and spread the knowledge to others as well. See you soon.
