WhatsApp’s View Once message feature has arrived

View Once is a new feature that’s finally available on WhatsApp. The beta version was released in July 2021, and after successful testing, is now being rolled out to all WhatsApp users. The new feature allows recipients to only open the message once before disappearing.

While the View Once feature aims to give senders more control over the media they send, therefore adding more privacy to the chatting app, there are still a few minor kinks to sort out.

The app benefits users who need to send confidential information, such as Wi-Fi passwords, or personal contact numbers and similar. The message can be viewed once before vanishing. We noted that although the message vanished after being opened, you can still take a screenshot of the message before disappearing. The app also doesn’t alert you if someone took a screenshot of the message.

Another issue with this new feature is that if you send a View Once message to a group on WhatsApp with blocked users, these blocked users will also be able to open and view the message.

Despite these issues being raised by many privacy advocates during the beta testing, it doesn’t appear that any changes have been made to the stable release version coming to all users. We can only hope that these issues will be addressed in a future update to provide the privacy needed from such a feature.

Despite these minor issues, it’s still a useful feature to have, and one that WhatsApp users have been requesting for a while.

How to use View Once

Once you’ve installed the new WhatsApp update coming this week, you’ll have the ability to use View Once on your messages, media, and voice notes. You can find this option by tapping the paperclip icon, adding or recording your media, and tapping the 1 icon next to the send button. By doing this, the message will only be able to be viewed once by the recipient.

Closing words

While the new feature allows you to send messages and media that can only be viewed once, we’re concerned that developers forgot to include a few additions to truly make this feature private. Regardless, it’s a useful feature to have, and we hope these issues will be addressed in a future update.

 

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