This free WhatsApp upgrade gives senders superpowers

(Image credit: WhatsApp)

published 21 April 2023

WhatsApp has just added an interesting new feature: Keep in Chat, which enables you to save a message so you can refer back to it in the future. It's a handy way to keep little bits of information (or just funny stuff) from chats that might otherwise disappear, and it doesn't get in the way of the sender's privacy preferences. That's because WhatsApp has also decided to give the sender the opportunity to veto any Keep in Chat saves.

According to WhatsApp, the feature – which is rolling out globally over the next few weeks – is really straightforward: when someone keeps a message from a chat you're expecting to disappear, you'll be asked if that's okay. If it is, great: the other person can save your message. But if it's not okay, you can override the request.

What happens if you veto WhatsApp Keep in Chat?

If you decide you'd rather not let somebody save your message, it'll simply expire at the same time as the rest of the chat.

If you're the person who wants to keep the message, if the sender vetos it you won't be able to save it. But if they don't, you'll see a little bookmark icon appear next to the saved message. Those messages will then sit in your Kept Messages folder where they'll be organised by chat.

It seems just yesterday that I was writing about the frequency of WhatsApp upgrades and updates, because it was: this is an app that's in constant development because the messaging market is so important to tech giants such as Meta, WhatsApp's owner.

WhatsApp is available for iPhone, Android, Web and Mac, and there's a beta version of the new Mac app you can download at WhatsApp.com.

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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).