WhatsApp is probably the most used messaging app in the UAE because it’s free, but a lot of its users do not know that there are various tricks hidden in this app.
Just in case you’re not aware of them yet, here are the top things you can do with it:
1. Check how much data you have shared with your WhatsApp contacts
You can now check who you have shared photos, videos, and chats the most by clicking the Data and Storage Usage in the Settings menu. Simply select the Storage Usage, and, voila, there’s a list of all your groups and contacts in order of how many megabytes you shared with each other.
2. See who has read your messages
In group chats, you cannot see who has read your messages until the two checks go blue, indicating that everyone in the chat has seen the message. Now, by holding down on a message and selecting Info, you can see who has seen the message and what time he or she has seen it.
3. Mute group chats
Admit it, some group chats are so distracting, especially when you are working and everyone in the chat keeps on sending messages. You can mute a group chat by tapping on the name of the chat, select Mute and choose how long you want to mute the chat. You can choose between eight hours, a week, or a year.
4. Create shortcuts to conversations
Android users can create shortcuts to their WhatsApp conversations by tapping and holding on the chat that they want to create a shortcut for and selecting the Add Conversation Shortcut option. The shortcut will be displayed on your phone’s homepage.
5. Hide your ‘last online’ time
Your contacts on WhatsApp can see the last time you were online. You can turn this off by going to the Privacy menu, under Last Seen, select if you want to hide your ‘last online’ time from everybody or just selected contacts.
6. Ask help from Siri or Google Assistant
If you are busy or just too lazy to reply, Apple users can ask for Siri’s help while Android users can enable Google Assistant to reply for you. Just activate Siri or Google Assistant, say “send a WhatsApp to Jimmy” and you can dictate your message to whoever you want in your contacts.
7. Backup your files
You can also save your entire conversations, including photos and videos, by going to the Chats menu in Settings and selecting Chat Backup. Apple users will have their saved conversations in their iCloud while Android users can access their backups in Google Drive.
8. Save your data
Every byte counts especially if you have limited data. You can alter your Auto-Download options in Data and Storage Usage, which allows you to stop large files being downloaded unless you’re on Wi-Fi. You can also totally stop any file from downloading on their own by selecting ‘Never’.
9. Assign tones to specific people
You can also recognize who messaged you even without looking at your phone by giving each contact their own message tone. You can do this by going to the contact info page. From there, select Custom Tone and assign a tone to the contact chosen.
10. Save specific chats
Wanna save a specific chat history for later use? Click on the contact’s name, select Export Chat and save it as a Zip file.
11. Mark messages as unread
Forgot to reply? No worries! Mark them as unread by swiping the chat to the right and that’s it! Android users can also do this by long-pressing on a chat.
Make sure you remember all these hacks. You never know when they will be helpful!
