WhatsApp’s ‘View Once’ feature may include text messages

 

WhatsApp’s “View Once” feature, which currently only applies to media like photographs and videos, may soon be expanded to include text messages. According to WABetaInfo’s discoveries, the feature is present in the most recent beta version of the Android app for WhatsApp. It may one day allow users to send messages that can only be viewed once before disappearing forever.

The new feature could one day be handy for sharing sensitive information that you don’t want the receiver to have continuing access to, such as passwords or credit card numbers, similar to the present “View Once” feature. One may easily picture this data being transmitted as an ephemeral text message. When announcing View Once for images and videos, WhatsApp even cited this use case—a user sending a photo of their Wi-Fi password—as an illustration of the feature’s potential utility.

You may make all of the chat’s messages vanish after a certain amount of time has passed in WhatsApp, thanks to their disappearing messages feature. On the other hand, the new “View Once” feature would only apply to a single message and not the entire discussion; messages would be deleted immediately after being read rather than after a certain amount of time.

According to WABetaInfo, the capability may be accessed through a future update to the app that adds a padlock to the traditional “send message” logo. The feature is still in the works and has yet to be available to beta testers, so the look may be revised before the final release.

If the recipient uses the most recent version of the WhatsApp programme, they cannot take a screenshot of a piece of view once media. However, it is presently being determined whether or not this similar protection will be extended to text messages in the future.

The feature’s expected release date and availability are unknown, as a WhatsApp representative declined to comment on WABetaInfo’s report on the upcoming feature.