6 WhatsApp Features Everyone Should Know
WhatsApp is sure to have found a space on almost everyone’s handsets. The app with over a 800 million active user base, offers one of the best services to have a real-time conversation. Most of us must be using the app for a while now, but you probably didn’t know that WhatsApp is hiding many features that could make the wrinkles from your forehead, vanish. Mastering the tool can help you save the bandwidth, mute negligible groups, keep the stalkers at bay, and hence, have a good night’s sleep.
Here are some of the features that can make your life a lot easier.
Add Conversation Shortcut to the Home Screen
There must be folks in your WhatsApp contacts with whom you talk frequently to. Bring them a step closer by creating a chat shortcut on Home screen. Long tap on the desired contact and click ‘Add chat shortcut’ present in the chat menu. An icon will add to your home screen through which you can chat directly with the person, without surfing through a list of contacts. A useful feature, unfortunately missing on Apple devices.
Pop-Up Notifications
This feature on WhatsApp lets you access messages even when the screen is locked. Go to Settings > Notifications > Popup Notifications and select ‘Only when screen is off’ to see messages and reply without unlocking the device. Pop up notifications put aside the hassle of unlocking screen to see received notifications and reply to them.
Mute Group Chats
Besides giving you the convenience of sharing things at one place, Group chats can be a bit noisy at times. No worries! Mute them and let your friends do the talking. Click on the group and from the drop-down menu, select Mute. Select the time frame for which you don’t want any updates and disable Show notifications.
Disable Media Auto-Download
Media auto-download gobbles up your internet data. Turn it off to save the bandwidth and specify WhatsApp when you want the audio and video files to be downloaded. Click on Settings > Chat settings > Media auto-download and choose from the options when using mobile data, Wi-Fi and roaming.
Send Conversations Through Email
Users are going to love this feature, at least some of them. WhatsApp allows you keep a record of your chats on your PC or inbox by sending conversations through email. It’s as fast as any other mailing process and takes mere seconds. Long press the contact and tap on ‘Email chat’ from the chat menu. Add recipients’ email address and the conversation will be sent to the provided address. You can choose to include media file if you like.
Avoid Blue Ticks
Where the cross-platform social messaging service got acclaims for real-time conversation, blue ticks brought outrage for offering recipients with read receipts. The new WhatsApp version allows you to avoid this through a simple setting. Click on Settings > Account > Privacy and disable Read receipts if don’t want the sender to know about the delivery status. Now, neither you nor any sender will be able to see read receipts. Isn’t it useful?
