Last minute news! WhatsApp and Mark Zuckerberg himself just announced a new function for the messaging tool a few minutes ago: save temporary messages. But, in addition, a “super power” has been included that allows those who send these messages to have definitive control over them. If someone tries to copy them, the sender will be warned and can protect them.
Keep in chat
WhatsApp says that they understand the use of temporary messages in their tool, because there are times when users do not want what they write to stay around permanently. But they are also aware that there may be times when you want to keep these messages. This is why a new feature known as Keep in Chat is introduced. This has been announced both on the company’s blog and, in a slightly more striking way, on Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Facebook, something that does not always happen when there is news related to the messaging app.
With it, temporary messages are no longer totally temporary in specific cases in which you want to keep them. But there is a very important detail to take into account: the person who sent the message is who has full control over this function. How does the system work?
A superpower to be in control
The person who originally sent the message always is the one that will decide if it can be saved or not. Thus, when someone tries to save the message, the original author who sent it will receive a warning notification and WhatsApp will ask them if they have made the decision to allow the message to be saved or not. Therefore, no message can ever be stored privately without notifying the original sender. In this way, the app wants to help make communications between users freer, but without losing the importance of guaranteeing privacy in WhatsApp, something the application has been committed to in recent years.
Saving messages is very simple. All you have to do is hover over it and make a long press, after which the option to do so will appear. What happens when a temporary message is saved this way? If the author approves it, it will be stored and WhatsApp will display it with a bookmark icon that helps to easily identify it. In addition, they are organized according to the chat they come from, so it is easy to see them without having to search through the different temporary messages that have been saved over time. All these saved messages will be in a folder known by the name of “Preserved Messages”.
It is important to take into account that, at least for now, the decision to allow the storage of a temporary message or not allows filters. That is, when the sender decides that that message cannot be saved, will be marked for deletion when the right time comes. Therefore, the sender is prevented from selecting that a certain person can save it and others cannot. Possibly they have had this type of idea in mind in order to avoid possible uncomfortable situations.
This novelty adds to the latest additions that WhatsApp has made in recent weeks, in which, among other things, security levels are being strengthened. The application thus seeks to make its users feel safer and calmer when using it, something that, in the past, had been a pending task. But little by little, WhatsApp is considerably improving the service they provide to users, which is undoubtedly very good news.
