WhatsApp is one of the most popular instant messengers, through which millions of people around the world communicate. However, many users still do not know all the capabilities of the service. And among the latter, by the way, there are some very useful ones. Let’s talk about these.
1. Set the visibility of personal data
Go to Settings → Account → Privacy. Here you can configure the visibility of personal data: profile photo, status and information about your last visit. If you want this information to be hidden from everyone, simply select Nobody.
For iOS, identical settings are located in the “Privacy” item in the account settings.
2. Format messages
Not everyone still knows that text in messages can be highlighted in bold, written in italics or crossed out. To do this, you need to put a certain symbol before and after the word.
For bold typeface – an asterisk, for italics – an underscore, and for crossed out text – a tilde. For example: *word*, _word_, ~word~.
3. Reply to a specific message
During active correspondence, the ability to respond to the desired message allows you to avoid confusion and misunderstandings. WhatsApp implements this feature especially conveniently.
All you have to do is swipe on a chat message from left to right, and it will be attached to your next message, indicating exactly what you responded to.
You can also simply hold down the message and click on the arrow that appears in the top menu.
4. Add messages to favorites
Adding a message to your favorites will allow you to quickly return to it without having to search through the chat. This can be useful when you need to save some coordinates, a shopping list , a task, and so on.
To add, you just need to hold down any message in the correspondence and select the button with an asterisk. It will immediately be added to a special menu, which can be accessed on Android through three dots in the upper right corner, and on iOS through WhatsApp settings.
5. Use messaging
General mailing is especially useful when you need to share something with a large number of users without putting them into a group. The function is available in the menu by clicking the three dots in the upper right corner. The message will be sent to everyone you tag in your contact list. Their answers will only be visible to you.
6. Check when a message was delivered and read
Not everyone knows that in WhatsApp you can find out the specific time when a person received a message and when he read it. To do this, long-press the desired message in the chat, click on the three dots in the upper right corner and select “Info”. On iOS, after pressing, select “Data” from the menu.
This feature can be very useful when you cannot contact a person and do not even know whether he received your message. However, please note that this only works if the user has not disabled Read Receipt in their privacy settings.
7. Set up custom notifications
Unlike many other instant messengers, WhatsApp allows you to set up notifications for new messages and calls for each contact or group separately. This allows, for example, not only to turn off the sound signal for messages from a certain person, but also to select a specific melody for him.
With this option, you can find out who exactly wrote to you without even looking at the smartphone display. To configure, you need to open the contact or group menu and go to the “Individual notifications” item. There, by checking the box next to “Use”, you need to edit the necessary items.
8. Disable automatic media downloads
Turning this feature off is especially useful when roaming, as your mobile operator may charge you significant data download fees .
Go to Settings → Data and Storage → Autoload Media. You will find three options: “Mobile network”, “Wi-Fi” and “Roaming”. In each of these items, uncheck the boxes next to “Images”, “Audio” and “Video”.
9. Change your mobile number without data loss
If you have a new SIM card, this does not mean that you need to create another WhatsApp account. Everything is much simpler. Go to “Settings” → “Account” → “Change number”. Confirm your old number, enter your new one, and you’re done.
This will allow you to quickly transfer all your groups, settings and account information.
10. Protect WhatsApp with a password
Some things are not meant for prying eyes. In particular, your correspondence on WhatsApp. And if you know that any of your friends or family members like to rummage through other people’s messages, then the best solution is to protect WhatsApp with a password. For example, through the ChatLock application.
