WhatsApp's Disappearing Messages Feature in Beta

The mobile messaging giant is reaffirming its privacy-first stance by trying a new feature that allows users to send messages that self destruct within a specified time frame.

WhatsApp has been keen on privacy- its end-to-end encryption and 'delete for everyone' feature is proof of that. Lately, the Facebook-owned platform is working on a new feature that would allow users to set a self-destruct timer to their ‘sent’ messages.

The feature has already been rolled by its prime competitor Telegram a long time ago and WhatsApp is just trying to catch up with it. WABetaInfo reported that WhatsApp is working on a feature that will automatically delete messages from the chat once set by the user.

WABetaInfo also revealed the specifics of the latest feature. The said functionality will be appearing on the chat settings and users can toggle the ‘Disappearing Messages’ feature on or off. Also, there are options for message expiration time which for now only includes a “5 seconds” and “1-hour” timer. But users can expect more options in the final release.

Currently, the feature is only available on WhatsApp beta for Android and even then it is only for selected users. There is also news that the company is working on a dark mode feature for its iOS users after Apple brought a dark mode to its mobiles on iOS 13.

Both of these features lack an official release date as they are currently in the beta-state.