Can you go a day without using WhatsApp? It’s almost impossible to do without this social media tool that helps us stay in touch with friends, family, colleagues, customers, etc. I bet you send way more WhatsApp messages than SMS. However, you might find after reading this article, that you’re not maximizing all the features available to you on WhatsApp. I will show you some hidden features, you may not know.
1. Share your live location to a contact
You can share more than just text messages, pictures and video via WhatsApp. Ladies and gentlemen, you can also share your live location with a contact. A scenario where this particularly useful is if you’re meeting up with a friend somewhere in town and you don’t always want to answering the where are you question. You can provide an update in real-time about your location without saying a word. Your friend will be able to see your live location for either 15minutes, 1 hour or 8 hours, the choice is yours to make.
To use this feature:
iOS: Open WhatsApp > Tap specific chat conversation > Tap on the "+" sign to the left of the message box >Tap Location > Tap Share Live Location > Select time frame.
Android: Open WhatsApp > Tap specific chat conversation > Tap on the paperclip to the right of the message box > Tap Location > Tap Share Live Location > Select time frame.
2. Manage your data allowance
Data is very expensive in Nigeria, using it prudently is key. This WhatsApp setting allows you to customize when multimedia like pictures and videos can be allowed to download to your phone. This data management feature also ensures calls use as little data as possible.
To turn this feature on for iOS & Android devices:
Open WhatsApp > Tap Settings > Tap Data and Storage Usage > Tap Media Auto-Download > Switch to Wi-Fi only to save your data.
3. Search a specific chat conversation
I am sure you already know you can search all your chat conversations at once, but how about if the results of that general search is overwhelming. You can narrow it down by searching a particular chat conversion.
iOS: Open WhatsApp> Tap Chats > Tap the Specific chat you want to search > Tap on contact info at the top > Tap Chat Search > Type the search keyword in the search bar that appears at the top of that specific chat.
Android: Open WhatsApp > Tap Chats > Tap the Specific chat you want to search > Open the menu top right > Tap Search > Type in the search bar that appears at the top of that specific chat.
4. Stop multimedia content from appearing in your gallery
Sometimes you receive photos or videos from contacts which you only want to view but not download or save. However, by default, WhatsApp automatically saves these pictures and videos to your gallery. It can be so annoying. Here's how to stop this.
iOS: Open WhatsApp > Tap Settings > Tap Chats > Toggle off Save to Camera Roll.
Android: Open WhatsApp > Tap Settings > Tap Chats > Toggle off Show Media in Gallery.
5. Disable automatic multimedia saving for specific chats
If disabling automatically saving images and video (shared via WhatsApp) for everyone isn’t your thing, you can narrow it down to specific chats. For example, while you may want all pictures shared by your family members to be automatically saved to your phone’s gallery, you may not want the same for some lousy WhatsApp groups you are part of.
iOS: Open WhatsApp> Tap Chat > Tap Specific chat > Tap on contact or subject at top of display > Save to Camera Roll > Set to Always or Never.
6. Privately reply to a message sent on a group
Sometimes when someone sends a message on a WhatsApp group, you may want to reply the person privately. This feature enables me to do this without having to manually find a one-on-one conversation with the contact. Here's how to do it:
iOS: Press and hold a message in a group chat > Select More > Reply Privately. The message will appear in your one-to-one chat with the text box below, as it does if you reply to a specific message like above.
Android: Press and hold a message in a group chat > Select the three buttons in the top right corner > Reply Privately. The message will appear in your one-to-one chat with the text box below, as it does if you reply to a specific message like above.
7. Pin a chat conversation to the top
If you're like me who sometimes forgets to continue WhatsApp messages after sending “brb”, this trick is for you. Instead of always marking a chat as unread to keep unfinished conversations easily noticeable, you can pin it to the top of your chats window. You can pin up to three chats at once.
iOS: Tap Chats > Swipe left to right > Pin Chat.
Android: Long press chat > Press the pin at the top of the screen.
Extra:
I know I promised to share 7, but a little more generosity won’t hurt…lol. Do you know you can create events and calendar entries from WhatsApp chats? If you're prone to forgetting dates mentioned in various chats, you can leverage this feature to automatically create an event directly from WhatsApp on iOS. Press and hold date within chat > Create Event.
Ohhhh! I only know 1 two out of this
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