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WhatsApp is now 12 years old. The company has revealed on Twitter that it has over two billion users who use WhatsApp each month to send 100 billion messages. The messaging service has attracted billions of users by offering tons of features and a simple UI. Though, many people are now switching to different messaging apps because of misperceptions about WhatsApp sharing users’ data. The fact is WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted and the company can’t access any of your messages. Let’s look at the best features offered by WhatsApp. You can read on how to guard against hackers here.
Video/voice call
One of the best features of WhatsApp is the call feature. The messaging app lets you make instant video or voice calls to anyone in this world. The app even supports a group video calling feature, which is great. You can add 8 users at a time in a group call. For this, all you need to do is to tap on the call button, then tap on the names of people you want to take part in the call.
Picture-in-Picture mode
Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode is also a great feature, which lets you play shared videos in the messaging app even after switching chats or chatting with someone. The PiP mode supports videos from platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Streamable. This way you don’t need to close the WhatsApp app to watch a video on YouTube.
New storage management tool
WhatsApp redesigned its storage management tool and is now offering an improved version of it. The storage management section lets you check all the forwarded photos, videos, files that you have received on the messaging app. The tool also gives you the option to delete them. There is also a dedicated section, which displays files that are larger than 5MB. So, if your storage is full, you can visit this section to free some space. They hid the tool in the Settings section > Storage and data > Manage storage.
Blue ticks, Last seen
Blue ticks and Last seen are the popular features of WhatsApp. People love to know when their messages were delivered and read by the contact. One can also check what time you were online the last time. You can disable these features by visiting the settings section. Just go to Settings > Account > Privacy > disable Read receipts or Last seen.
WhatsApp voice messages, 30 audio files
The messaging platform allows you to send voice messages too, which is a very useful feature. Sometimes you don’t want to type a big message and feel like sending a voice message. You can also share 30 audio files at once. The platform even supports audio preview and image preview if album art is available and this won’t change your selection process.
Fingerprint lock
Fingerprint lock is a privacy feature of WhatsApp, which adds a layer of security. Once you enable it, only you will access your chats. Users can also enable or disable message context preview in the notifications. WhatsApp offers three options to automatically lock the messaging app. The first is “Immediately,” the second is “After 1 minute,” and the third is “After 30 minutes.” The fingerprint lock feature of WhatsApp doesn’t block calls, and only hides messages.
WhatsApp Dark Mode
Dark mode was one of the most demanded features by users. The dark theme helps offer relief to the eyes when you are chatting at night or in a dark room. The dark theme is available in the Settings section. To enable it, you need to go to ‘Chats’ > Theme > Dark. If your device is running on Android 10, then choose system default. The Dark mode feature is visible for both Android and iOS users.
Frequently forwarded label
The frequently forwarded label has helped many in identifying how many times someone has forwarded a message. When you forward a message on WhatsApp, you can only share it with up to five contacts at one time, after which a frequently forwarded label will be added. You then will forward a message to only one chat at a time. The company says this helps slow down the spread of rumors, viral messages, and fake news.
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