WhatsApp has introduced a new Chat Lock feature. It will enable users to hide Whatsapp chats. Meta said in a blog post on Monday “lets you protect your most intimate conversations behind one more layer of security.”
“New locked chats in WhatsApp make your conversations more private by allowing you to hide Whatsapp chats,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted. “They’re hidden in a password-protected folder and notifications won’t show sender or message content.”
So what will it involve? If you select Chat Lock on a certain chat, it’ll disappear from your general inbox. It will instead be hidden in another folder that’s only accessible with your phone’s password or fingerprint. This is the most functional way to hide Whatsapp chats ever. Any notifications that hit your phone for that locked chat will also have the sender and message hidden.
Here’s how to hide your Whatsapp chats
- Open the WhatsApp app.
- Tap the name of a person or group chat.
- Select Lock.
Here’s how to reveal your locked chats on WhatsApp:
- Slowly pull down on your chats inbox.
- Enter your phone’s pass code or your fingerprint.
- Your locked chats will then appear.
WhatsApp, which will soon work on your Wear OS watch. The feature is rolling out now. It will keep adding more options to Chat Lock over the next few months. This wil include unique passwords for chats and locking chats on companion devices like your smartwatch.
The CEO said that users can now reply to any message in a DM thread, not just the most recent, as well as use any emoji to react to a message. Previously, users would only be able to reply to the latest message in a DM thread and only react with specific emojis.
Encryption in messages means that only the sender and receiver are able to see a message. In theory, Twitter and Musk would not be able to see or intercept direct messages between people.
“The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head,” Musk tweeted.
