WhatsApp is the most used app in the world as well as the most popular messaging service. The major reason for this is that WhatsApp uses your phone’s internet connection so it attracts no additional cost. The apps keeps getting better with amazing WhatsApp features being added all the time to meet the needs of their teeming customers.
Here are some features of WhatsApp that most people aren’t familiar with.
Stop people from adding you to WhatsApp groups without your permission
It’s so annoying for you to wake up one morning and see that you’ve been added to a WhatsApp group that you’re not interested in being part of without your knowledge. There’s a WhatsApp feature that allows you to stop people from adding you to the group by following the steps below:
- Launch WhatsApp on your device.
- Tap the 3 vertical dots at the top right corner of your screen to reveal a drop down menu
- Select Settings
- Select Accounts option
- Select Privacy
- Select Groups
- There are three options: “Everyone”, “My Contacts” and “My contacts except”. Note that Selecting “Everyone” allows anyone can add you to WhatsApp groups without your permission while selecting “My Contacts” allows only your contacts to add you.
- Select “My contacts except…”
- Select the check sign at the top right corner of the screen to select all your contacts
- Once all the contacts are selected, select the check sign at the bottom right of your screen
- You will see the number of contacts excluded under groups. That should represent all the contacts saved on your phone at the moment.
- You have to update the list whenever you add new contacts.
For Group Admins: Find out the number of people that have read your messages in a group
As a group admin, you send messages sometimes and people fail to respond. You wonder if they’ve read it or not. You don’t have to wonder anymore. There’s this cool WhatsApp feature that shows you the list of people who have read your WhatsApp messages.
- Launch WhatsApp on your device.
- Locate and open your group.
- Select and hold the message you want to check.
- Select the information
- You will see the message with a list of group members who have received or read it.
Disable preview messages or hide notifications from lock screen completely
If you want to disable WhatsApp messages preview for individual messages and/or groups, follow the following steps:
- Launch WhatsApp on your phone.
- Tap the 3 vertical dots at the top right corner of your application to reveal a drop down menu
- Select Settings
- Select Notifications
- Toggle off “Use high priority notification” under Messages and/or Groups. Depending on your version of WhatsApp, you may see “View in Lock Screen” or “Show Message Preview”
Share live location
There are times you may need to share your live locations with people
- Launch WhatsApp on your device.
- Open an individual or group chat.
- Tap the Attach button
- Select Location
- Select Share live location.
- Select the length of time you’d like to share your live location. Your live location will stop being shared after the selected amount of time. Optionally, add a comment.
- Tap Send.
Don’t allow media from particular groups or contacts to download to your device
You often discover that your phone storage gets filled up with WhatsApp media and the phone’s functionality gets affected. You can stop the media from downloading by:
To stop saving media from all your individual chats and groups to your phone.
- Launch WhatsApp on your device.
- Tap the 3 vertical dots at the top right corner of your application to reveal a drop down menu
- Select Settings
- Select Chats
- Turn off Media visibility.
Pin important conversations
The pin chat feature allows you to pin up to three specific chats to the top of your chats list so you can quickly find them.
To pin a chat
- Tap and hold the chat you want to pin
- Select Pin chat.
Unpin a chat
- Tap and hold the pinned chat
- Select Unpin chat.
Backup and Restore WhatsApp
Your phone can crash at any point in time and if your whatsapp conversations aren’t backep up, you wouldn’t be able to ever get them
There are two options for backup: Local and Online backups
Local backups
WhatsApp automatically creates a local backup on your phone’s internal storage daily. The backup file is encrypted and saved on the phone’s internal storage. The local backup is usually created at 2:00 am every morning.
Online backups (To do online backups, you will need a Google account and a good internet connection):
- Launch WhatsApp on your device.
- Tap the 3 vertical dots at the top right corner of your application to reveal a drop down menu
- Select Settings
- Select Chats
- Select Chat backup
- Select Back up to Google Drive.
- Select a backup frequency.
- Select the Google account you’d like to back up your chat history to. Select Add account if you don’t have a connected Google account.
- Select Back up over to choose the network you want to use for backups.
Online backup uses up more data so you may not do it daily and you can also choose not to download over cellular backup.
Restore from backup
WhatsApp usually stores up seven days of local backup files. To restore from backup:
- Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
- Open WhatsApp and verify your number.
- Select Restore.
- Select Next to view your chats. Note that your media will continue to download in the background after your chats are restored.
Restore from a local backup on another phone
If there’s a need for you to use WhatsApp on another phone, you can restore the backup from your previous phone using SD Card or any other means by following the steps below:
- Install and set up WhatsApp on the new phone
- Uninstall the newly setup WhatsApp from your phone
- Using a file manager app, Locate and delete the WhatsApp folder in your phone’s internal storage
- Insert your SD Card with the old WhatsApp backup into the new phone (If you’re not using SD Card, simply copy the WhatsApp folder from the old phone to the same location as the one deleted on the new phone and jump to step f)
- Copy and paste the WhatsApp folder from the SD Card to the same location as the one deleted.
- Go to document root(Internal Storage/SD Card)/WhatsApp/Databases on the new phone
- Rename the backup file you want to restore from msgstore-YYYY-MM-DD.1.db.crypt12 to msgstore.db.crypt12.
- Install WhatsApp.
- Select Restore.
Use WhatsApp on your PC
Another amazing feature of WhatsApp is the ability to use the messaging service on your PC. Using WhatsApp on your PC makes it much easier for you to access your chats using the most convenient device. To use WhatsApp on your PC:
Download and launch the desktop app or visit web.whatsapp.com
- Launch WhatsApp application on your phone.
- Tap the 3 vertical dots at the top right corner of your application to reveal a drop down menu
- Select WhatsApp Web
- There will be a QR code on the computer screen.
- Tap the + sign at the top right corner of you screen to scan the QR code
- WhatsApp will then open in your computer browser and you’ll be able to use it as to send messages as you would on your phone
- When you’ve finished your session, remember to log out. Click on the three-dot menu above the chats list on the left hand side of the screen
- Click on Log out at the bottom of the list. Ensure you log out so that anyone who logs on to your computer will not easily access your WhatsApp conversations.
Call up to 50 persons on WhatsApp Web via Messenger Rooms
WhatsApp recently added a new feature that allows you to call up to 50 persons via Messenger Rooms.
To use this new feature:
- Open WhatsApp Web
- Click the 3 dots at the top. You will see the options below:
- Select “Create Room”. It will display the screen below:
- Select “Continue in Messenger”
It will open another window asking you to create a room using your Facebook details. Create Room and start using Messenger Rooms.
ALSO READ: How To Use Facebook Messenger Rooms
Fact-Check Forwarded Messages
WhatsApp recently announced a new search feature to allow users fact check forwarded messages. The new feature, which was recently rolled out in Brazil, Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, UK, and US for those on the latest versions of WhatsApp for Android, iOS and WhatsApp Web, allows users to upload messages via their browser and verify the authenticity of the message. To use this feature:
- Launch WhatsApp application on your phone.
- Locate the forwarded chat you want to fact-check.
- Tap the search icon beside the message
- A dialog box appears with the options “Search the Web” and “Cancel”
- Tap “Search the web” to search content of the selected chat online.
Digital Payments
Facebook also released a feature in June that allows users to send money securely or make a purchase from a local business without leaving their WhatsApp chat. This feature was rolled out to people in Brazil and we believe it will soon be available to users in other parts of the world.
If there’s any WhatsApp feature you will like us to write about, kindly drop it in the comments section below or send a mail to [email protected].
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