WhatsApp tricks most people don't know about
From locking your chats to sending messages without saving a number, these simple tips will make the app work better for you
Most of us use WhatsApp every day without ever really exploring what it can do. Whether you want to protect your privacy, keep your chats a bit more organised or simply free up some space on your phone, there are some genuinely useful features tucked away in the app that are well worth knowing about. None of them are complicated, and most take less than a minute to set up.Lock your WhatsApp with your fingerprint or face
If someone picks up your phone, you probably do not want them reading your messages. You can add a biometric lock by going to Settings, then Privacy, then Fingerprint Lock on Android or Screen Lock on iPhone. You can choose for it to activate straight away or after a short delay. Simple and reassuring.
Control who sees when you were last online
Not everyone needs to know when you were last active on WhatsApp. Go to Settings, then Privacy, then Last Seen and Online. From there you can choose whether everyone, only your contacts, or nobody at all can see it. You can apply the same settings to your status updates.
Organise your groups with labels
If you are in several family or work groups, it can quickly become hard to keep track. Labels help. Open a group, tap on a contact's name and select Add Label to create or assign one. It sounds technical but it really is just a couple of taps.
Free up storage space
WhatsApp can quietly use up a lot of space on your phone without you realising. To check, go to Settings, then Storage and Data, then Manage Storage. You will see which chats are taking up the most room and can delete videos, audio files or large documents without losing your actual messages.
Use WhatsApp on your computer
If typing on a small screen is not your favourite thing, you can use WhatsApp from your laptop or desktop instead. Open https://web.whatsapp.com in a browser, then on your phone go to Settings, Linked Devices, Link a Device and scan the QR code that appears on screen. That is it. Much easier for longer messages.
Format your text to make it clearer
A few simple tricks make messages easier to read. Put asterisks around a word for bold, underscores for italics, and tildes for strikethrough text. Handy for emphasising something important or just adding a little personality to your messages.
Send a message without saving a number
Need to contact someone just the once without adding them to your contacts? Type https://wa.me/ into your browser followed by the phone number including the country code. For a Spanish number that would look like https://wa.me/34 followed by the number. The WhatsApp chat opens directly. No need to save anything.
Check where your WhatsApp is logged in
It is worth doing this occasionally. Go to Settings and then Linked Devices to see every device where your WhatsApp is currently active. If you spot anything you do not recognise, you can log it out immediately from the same screen. A useful security habit to get into.
There is a lot more to WhatsApp than most people realise, and the good news is that the best features are also the easiest to use once you know where to find them.
You might also be interested in: Use Google Maps and WhatsApp to spot traffic checks and share your location, from anywhere in Spain
Image: antonb/Pixabay
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