WhatsApp’s View Once Feature Let’s You Send Temporary Messages
August 3, 2021WhatsApp is launching a new feature today called View Once. Its purpose is to help reduce privacy problems that plague your clutter-ridden photo gallery. Many of us are accustomed to sending photos and videos via the messaging app to friends and family members. But we have no control over how long said content remains on their phones.
Well, that’s where the new View Once feature comes in handy. If you choose said option when sending a photo or video to a contact, it will disappear from the chat once the recipient has had a chance to view it. This is one of several tools WhatsApp is offering users to give them back control over their privacy.
This feature could prove useful when sharing a picture of yourself trying on clothes or sharing sensitive information, which includes a Wi-Fi password. Once the media has been viewed, it will be marked as “opened” to let you know that your contact has viewed said file. Messages that you choose to send via View Once are clearly marked in chats.
Credit: WhatsApp
According to WhatsApp, this is how it works:
- Media will not be saved to the recipient’s Photos or Gallery.
- Once you send a view once photo or video, you won’t be able to view it again.
- You can’t forward, save, star, or share photos or videos that were sent or received with view once media enabled.
- You can only see if a recipient has opened a view once photo or video if they have read receipts turned on.
- If you don’t open the photo or video within 14 days of it being sent, the media will expire from the chat.
- You must select view once media each time you want to send a view once photo or video.
- View once media can be restored from backup if the message is unopened at the time of back up. If the photo or video has already been opened, the media will not be included in the backup and can’t be restored.
WhatsApp will be offering the View Once feature to everyone starting this week and are looking forward to user feedback on improving said system. This could prove to be an extremely useful feature to many of us who constantly share personal information with friends or colleagues via the messaging app.
