WhatsApp working on a 90-day limit for disappearing messages

WhatsApp has been working on adding a lot of useful features to its chat platform, and one of these relatively recently added features is disappearing messages. Now, Android Authority reports WhatsApp is working on a new time limit for the disappearing messages: 90 days.

WhatsApp is working on a 90-day limit for disappearing messages

This long limit seems more like an auto-archive option than disappearing messages, as usually, disappearing messages options are used to protect privacy or, as WhatsApp initially stated, to make conversations “lighter and more private”. However, a three-month limit somehow defeats this purpose. The option for 24 hours disappearing messages is still not available, unfortunately, so users only have a 7 day disappearing period or a “View Once” option. As it is with beta versions, it is unclear when this feature will make its way to the general public and if it will at all.

Keep in mind that this feature is currently tested on the beta version of WhatsApp for Android, but will most likely make its way to the beta for iOS as well.

Automatically disappearing messages after 24 hours

The first time we reported on the new feature for disappearing messages for 24 hours was in April when the feature was first spotted to be tested in a beta version of WhatsApp for iOS. However, the feature is still not available, but it allows users to set a time limit of 24 hours on a message they are going to send on WhatsApp. The only available option right now is 7 days.

Social media disappearing messages

Snapchat has popularized disappearing messages

WhatsApp has been working on this feature for a few months already, but it was made mainstream by Snapchat, which allows users to send disappearing photos, messages, and content through the app. Later on, WhatsApp competitors Signal and Telegram have also implemented such a feature for self-destructing messages.

Twitter’s Fleets and Instagram Stories are in some ways similar, but they are more on the pubic side, while apps such as WhatsApp and Signal are primarily focused on more one-on-one chats or group chats, rather than a real social media experience.

We certainly do hope WhatsApp will also work on shorter time limits for disappearing messages, such as the long-awaited 24 hours one or maybe even a 48 hour one. The three-month period will be most useful for archiving chat messages, as usually within 90 days the messages are forgotten anyway, so there’s little point in them disappearing.

Other WhatsApp beta changes to look forward to

WhatsApp has been working recently on adding loads of useful features for beta testing either on iOS or on Android. Recently, beta users on WhatsApp of Android got a cool new set of emojis expressing emotions, resembling a recent Unicode Consortium version but developed by WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook itself.

Another welcome feature WhatsApp’s developers are working on is the option to send higher quality photos via the chat service, a welcome addition to WhatsApp. This feature will give you three options to choose from: “Best Quality”, “Data Saver”, or “Auto”.

As you might have noticed, the Best Quality one doesn’t necessarily mean the original quality, but it will indeed be better than the current lowering of photo quality WhatsApp does. Actually, even if you chose the “Best Quality” option, photos will still be compressed, but about 80% of their original quality will be conserved. Understandably, the “Data Saver” option compresses images even more.