“Old school WhatsApp” is not as old school as you might think. The messenger introduces a lot of handy features through its updates that make using the app much easier. Curious? Then keep reading because here are 11 cool tips and tricks that every WhatsApp user should know.
1. Use WhatsApp as a note app
Wouldn’t it be great if you could write to yourself on WhatsApp – for notes, shopping lists, thoughts, links, and all those spontaneous ideas that you quickly forget? Well, surprise surprise: you can! While you used to have to take a detour some time ago, now it can be done natively. WhatsApp offers a separate chat with yourself. And yes, it works without an internet connection.
You can send messages to yourself on WhatsApp.
2. Restore deleted chats
Can you recover accidentally deleted messages or photos? Yes, as long as they are at least one day old. In this case, you can take advantage of the automatic backup that WhatsApp creates of your chats every night. Here’s what you need to do:
Note: Chats and content that occurred between the last backup and the time of uninstallation will be permanently lost after deletion.
3. Personalize WhatsApp notifications
Imagine being able to assign a different tone or color to each contact on WhatsApp when they message you. That way, you immediately know: Ah, my phone is blinking yellow with sound X, that’s Susi. Or you can set a specific vibration: short vibration for Horst, long vibration for Jürgen. It might sound a bit silly, but it’s actually very practical – give it a try.
4. Format WhatsApp text messages
So far, WhatsApp doesn’t have a formatting toolbar that allows you to format your written messages. But there’s a workaround: This article shows you how to write words in bold, italics, or strikethrough in WhatsApp.
5. Pin chats
If you’re messaging with many different people, you may experience the problem of important chats getting lost in the chat clutter, and it can be annoying to constantly search for them. Much easier and more practical: pin the most important contacts to the top! On Android, you can do this by long-pressing the desired chat until the toolbar appears at the top of the screen. Tap on the small pin to keep the chat at the top of the chat list. Just a small caveat: you can only pin a maximum of 3 chats.
You can pin a maximum of 3 chats using the pin icon.
6. Mark important WhatsApp messages
To quickly find important messages, WhatsApp offers a favorites feature. With this feature, you can mark selected messages, photos, and files and view them in a separate window. To do this, long-press the message(s) you want to mark and then tap on the star icon in the toolbar at the top. To view the favorites, go back to the chat list, tap on the three vertical dots at the top (Android), and select “Marked with Star”.
“Marked with Star” includes all the messages you have marked as favorites.
7. Secretly view WhatsApp status
When you view someone’s WhatsApp status, they will be notified. Unless… you follow the tips we explain in this article. There, you will learn two ways to secretly view someone’s WhatsApp status.
8. Activate vacation mode
Vacation mode in WhatsApp? Yes! With a simple WhatsApp feature, you can send selected chats on vacation so that you can finally enjoy your own vacation without any annoying ringing. You can find more details and explanations here: How to set up vacation mode in WhatsApp.
9. Read deleted WhatsApp messages
In point 2, you learned how to recover messages that you deleted yourself. However, it’s a different story when your chat partner deletes a message. In the chat, you will only see a “This message was deleted” notification, and your first logical impulse is: I want to know what was deleted!
The bad news is that you don’t have a chance to read deleted messages with the built-in features. Now for the good news: There is a workaround. In this article, we explain in detail what this workaround looks like and how it works.
10. Share status updates with specific people only
Even though status posts in WhatsApp disappear after 24 hours, you should still carefully consider who is allowed to see them and who perhaps shouldn’t. Especially if you have colleagues, business partners, or clients on WhatsApp, inappropriate status updates can quickly lead to embarrassment. Luckily, this problem can easily be solved: Read here how to share your WhatsApp status updates with specific people only.
11. Activate self-destructing messages for more storage space
Self-destructing messages on WhatsApp have been around for quite some time now (we’re talking years). The feature can be activated for individual chats and ensures that messages in the chat automatically disappear after a set duration (24 hours, 7 days, 90 days). This not only enhances your privacy but also saves storage space on your phone occupied by WhatsApp.
What’s relatively new, however, is that you can now decide for yourself which messages should be automatically deleted and which ones you would like to keep in the chat. This is certainly convenient for those users for whom the previous feature “all or nothing” was not ideal. You can read more about the “Keep in Chat” feature in this article.