WhatsApp Could Copy Telegram’s Self-Destructing Messages for Individual Chats

WhatsApp could add self-destructing messages for individual chats, and the company is now experimenting with such an idea in the latest beta build.

The folks over at WABetaInfo has come across a new experiment in the most recent beta release which shows that WhatsApp is now looking into ways to add a feature called Delete Messages to its Android client (and most likely iOS as well at some point in the future).

This isn’t the first time WhatsApp is toying with such a feature, as the company previously tested self-destructing messages for group chats, but now it looks like the Facebook-owned firm wants to allow users to enable such capabilities in individual chats as well.

By the looks of things, users will be allowed to “choose how long new messages will last before they are deleted,” with the options ranging in between 1 hour and 1 year.

Hello, Telegram!

Self-destructing messages aren’t a new idea, as Telegram, which is one of the most popular alternatives to WhatsApp, already offers such capabilities in secret chats. Telegram uses privacy as one of its main selling points, and secret chats along with self-destructing messages are among the main highlights of the app.

At this point, it’s obviously unknown when and if WhatsApp brings messages that can automatically delete in individual chats to the stable version of the app, but what’s very clear is that the company still hasn’t given up on the idea to do so.

However, beta features come and go occasionally, so don’t be too surprised if the company removes them at one point and never brings them back. For the time being, we should just be happy that WhatsApp brought us a dark mode on Android and iOS, as the wait for self-destructing messages could be pretty long.