How many times have you ever wanted to send an image on WhatsApp, and wished that there was a way that message could self-destruct or disappear once the recipient sees it?
I will guess it is many, many times because there are sensitive images that must not be saved on your storage for security or sanity reasons.
Other apps such as Telegram have had that feature for years, but you and I know that while the chat app is insanely popular among enthusiasts, it still lags behind in terms of average monthly users, and some of its users check on it sporadically because they are hooked up on other chat platforms, including the aforementioned WhatsApp and Telegram.
As usual, WhatsApp is playing catchup with Telegram because the ‘view once’ feature is finally here for the masses, after being in a test phase for the last couple of weeks.
And this is how you use it:
- Open a chat on WhatsApp
- Choose an image you want to send
- Before you send it it, make sure you choose this option…
Then, send.
This will see the recipient view the image once, and the app will nuke it.
Impressive, right?
Bear in mind that some modded WhatsApp apps may be updated to see that the feature does not work akin to GB WhatsApp that restores images even when the sender has deleted them.
That aside, we are glad the feature is here. Facebook has been hard at work at introducing new features for WhatsApp. Now, users can even use the platform on three other non-smartphone devices without a direct connection to the primary phone. It is not the cloud-based approach we have always wanted, but it is a step in the right direction.
