Let's not lie to ourselves, while messaging apps like WhatsApp are super convenient, they are also prone to the accumulation of useless or uninteresting messages. If you don't want to sort through your friends to get rid of the "polluters" of conversations, you can however make chat messages automatically delete after a certain time.
In fact, WhatsApp implemented some time ago an option called “ ephemeral messages » which allows you to make messages in a conversation disappear after 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days!
Once this feature is enabled, new messages sent in the chat will disappear automatically. Each member of a chat can enable or disable this feature at any time. It is similar to disappearing messages on other such apps like Telegram and Instagram.
discover how to send messages that disappear after a given period of time.
Enable Disappearing Messages in a WhatsApp Conversation
Enabling this option can be done by any administrator of a discussion WhatsApp.
To do this, simply proceed as follows:
- Go to the discussion that interests you
- At the very top of the window, tap the contact name or chat name to access the settings
- Scroll down to the option Ephemeral messages and click on it
- There you can select the time after which messages are deleted: 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days.
To turn this option off on a conversation, just go to the same place and turn the option back to Off.
Enable ephemeral messages for all new conversations
If you want your messages to be systematically ephemeral, the messaging service offers an option to enable it by default. Be careful though, because this option only works for new individual discussions that you will create.
To enable disappearing messages on all your new one-to-one conversations on iOS or Android:
- Go to Settings/Parameters
- Then in USER LOGIN
- And finally Policy
Scroll down to the section Ephemeral Messages and select a default duration before your messages disappear (24 hours, 7 days or 90 days).
From then on, all messages from new individual discussions will disappear after the chosen duration.
Some important notes about ephemeral messages
1- Ephemeral messages concern all participants in a discussion and not just your own messages. So ALL messages in the discussion are affected.
2- If a user don't open the conversation before the set time, the message will disappear without being able to read it (the message preview may however be visible in the notifications).
3- An old post "mentioned" in another post will appear as long as this last message
4- Yes an ephemeral message is forwarded to another conversation where this option is not enabled, it will not disappear from this conversation.
5- Be careful because Ephemeral messages are not THE solution to leave no trace because they can be saved in other ways: screenshot, photo, copy of the text…
6- photos and videos sent in a discussion where the option is enabled are likely to be saved on the recipient's phone if they have enabled automatic media saving.
source: Neozone
Article updated on January 5, 2025 by Byothe
