WhatsApp rolls out ‘Keep in Chat’ feature for disappearing messages

Meta-owned WhatsApp has announced to release a new feature — “Keep in Chat” that will allow users to keep certain messages even after the Disappearing Messages feature has been turned on, WaBetaInfo reported.

According to the app-tracking website, this feature has already been released to some beta testers after installing the latest updates of the app. The feature will be available for everyone over the next few weeks, it added.

Conversations are automatically deleted after a set period of time when the Disappearing Messages feature is on. This feature provides an extra layer of privacy but it can also make it difficult for users to keep track of important messages.

Users can now choose to save specific disappearing messages for future reference by using the option to keep a message in the conversation.

The sender will be notified and given the option to veto the decision when someone keeps a message from disappearing. If the sender chooses to unkeep a message, it will be deleted when the timer expires.

Thanks to this option, the sender still has complete control over how their messages. Messages that have been kept from disappearing will be marked with a bookmark icon, and they will be listed within a new section called “Kept Messages”, available within chat info. This allows users to easily access the messages they have chosen to keep.

It is pertinent to mention here that even if the screenshot is taken from WhatsApp for Android, this feature is not exclusive to this platform as it is also available to some users on WhatsApp for iOS and Desktop.

The ability to keep messages from disappearing will be released globally to all users over the coming weeks.