WhatsApp launches disappearing messages

Telegram and Signal were offering the disappearing messages for a long time. Facebook’s Messenger app also allows you to set delete timers on the messages in the secret chats. Now WhatsApp has also announced that it is coming into the arena. The disappearing messages are rolling out to stable version of WhatsApp from today.

Unlike Telegram and Messenger you won’t need to start a secret chat for activating disappearing messages. Once the feature is in your hand then both the parties will be able to activate it for one-to-one chats while the admins can tweak it in the groups. There is only one option to make the messages disappear after seven days, a timeframe you can not tweak.

WhatsApp is coming up with the disappearing messages as a way that the chats looks more like real-world interactions no as a Snapchat clone. The main objective is to make the conversations on WhatsApp feel as close to in-person as possible. When the disappearing messages is turned on then the new messages sent to a chat will disappear after a week which will feel your conversation lighter and more private. The recipients can take the screenshots or save the messages elsewhere.

Disappearing messages were in testing for about a year and back then the experiment was started with the options to make the messages disappear within five seconds or an hour after reading but later WhatsApp decided that a week is the most desired spot for most of the people.