Earlier this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and WhatsApp head Will Cathcart confirmed that WhatsApp will soon allow users to send disappearing images. This came months after the company announced support for disappearing messages on the platform.
The new disappearing media option will allow users to send photos or videos that will be deleted after they have been opened. It works similar to Snapchat and deletes the media file as soon as it has been viewed. The implementation is simple, and you can follow the steps below to try it out for yourself:
- Open WhatsApp and select the contact that you want to send the disappearing media to.
- Select the image or video from your gallery or take a photo using the camera option in WhatsApp.
- Once selected, tap on the little circle tucked between the caption bar and the send button. This will set the media so that it can be viewed once and will then disappear.
Unlike Snapchat, WhatsApp does not prevent users from taking screenshots so it should be used with trusted contacts only. Furthermore, the sender can see when the media was opened, even if you have turned off read receipts on WhatsApp. Lastly, the feature will still work even if the receiver has not updated WhatsApp to the latest version.
Currently, WhatsApp is rolling out disappearing media to a select group of Android beta users (version 2.21.14.3). There is no word on when the company plans to do a public rollout of the feature.