WhatsApp, one of the world’s largest instant messaging networks, continues to captivate billions of users worldwide. Constantly evolving, it owes its success to a commitment to regular updates that keep the application fresh and user-friendly. In its pursuit of expanding possibilities, WhatsApp has introduced an array of new features this year. Join us on an exploration of WhatsApp’s new features in 2023. Discover how they can enhance your messaging and elevate your interactions!
Enhance Your WhatsApp Group Experience
WhatsApp has taken significant steps to improve and enrich the experience of its users within group chats. Recent updates have made group management more intuitive. How come?
1 More Controls for Admins: Taking Charge of Group Privacy
Group admins now have enhanced control over who can join their groups, ensuring that conversations remain intimate and secure. When admins share an invite link or make the group joinable in a community, they can decide who has permission to join. In other words, they can handpick the participants and maintain a close-knit group environment.
2 Strengthening Connections
With the introduction of larger Communities, it’s now easier to find shared interests and common ground with your contacts. You can effortlessly search a contact’s name to see which groups you both belong to, helping you recall the names of shared groups or discover new ones together. This feature aims to foster stronger connections among group members.
WhatsApp Security Features: New Account Protection and Verification Features
Building upon their default end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp introduced some new security features offering additional layers of protection and greater control over your messages.
- Account Protect: For added security when switching to a new device, WhatsApp implements an extra verification step on your old device. This ensures that it’s genuinely you who wants to make this change and helps thwart unauthorized attempts to move your account to another device.
- Device Verification: To combat the threat of mobile device malware, which can misuse your WhatsApp to send unwanted messages, they have implemented checks to authenticate your account automatically. This seamless process helps keep your WhatsApp usage uninterrupted and safeguards your privacy if your device is compromised.
- Automatic Security Codes: Security-conscious users have been enjoying the security code verification feature to ensure secure conversations. To make it even more accessible, WhatsApp has introduced a new security feature based on “Key Transparency.” When you click on the encryption tab, you will instantly verify that your conversations are securely protected.
These are just some of the ways how to enhance your account’s security. However, there are two essential features that only you can activate: two-step verification and end-to-end encrypted backups. If you are already using both, consider sharing them with your friends to help them benefit from these added layers of security as well.
“Keep in Chat”
With Disappearing Messages ensuring privacy in conversations, messages no longer have to linger forever like in-person discussions. However, sometimes you want to hold on to essential information or that special voice note.
The new feature called “Keep in Chat” grants you the ability to retain texts you may need later. But here’s the cool twist: as the sender, you decide whether others in the chat can keep your message for the long haul.
When you use “Keep in Chat,” they will notify you if someone saves your message. The power is in your hands – you can veto the decision and ensure your message remains private. If you choose not to let others keep it, your decision is final, and the message will disappear when the timer runs out.
You can easily identify your saved messages by the bookmark icon (see these messages, organized by chat, in the Kept Messages folder).
With this new update, you can hold on to messages that matter most to you!
One WhatsApp Account, Multiple Phones
Building on their commitment to seamless messaging across devices with top-notch privacy and security, WhatsApp finally announced a highly requested feature – the ability to use the same WhatsApp account on multiple phones!
Now, you can link your phone to up to four additional devices, just like you do with WhatsApp on web browsers, tablets, and desktops. Each linked phone operates independently, ensuring end-to-end encryption for your personal messages, media, and calls. Plus, for added security, if your primary device remains inactive for an extended period, it will automatically log you out of all companion devices.
Linking phones as companion devices brings a new level of convenience to your messaging experience. Switch between phones without signing out and pick up your chats where you left off. For small business owners, this means their employees can now respond directly to customers from their phones under the same WhatsApp Business account.
Furthermore, they have introduced an alternative and more accessible way to link companion devices. Now, you can enter your phone number on WhatsApp Web to receive a one-time code. Use this code on your phone to enable device linking, eliminating the need to scan a QR code.
Polls and Media Sharing with Captions
At the beginning of May 2023, WhatsApp introduced a range of exciting new features designed to make your chats more productive and fun.
Updates to Polls
There are three fantastic updates to polls.
Create single-vote polls: When you need a clear-cut answer, poll creators can now allow people to vote only once by turning off the ‘allow multiple answers’ option while creating the poll.
Search for polls in your chats: Can’t respond to a poll immediately? No worries! Now you can effortlessly find polls within the chat at any time. Just like filtering photos, videos, or links, you can use the ‘Search’ feature on the ‘Chats’ screen and select ‘Polls’ to see a list of all results.
Stay updated on poll results: You won’t miss a beat with poll responses anymore. Get timely notifications when people vote on your polls, so you are always up to date.
Forwarding with Captions
Sharing photos with friends and family is so easy on WhatsApp, especially with the option to forward media to different groups. Now, when you forward media with captions, you have the flexibility to keep, delete, or rewrite the caption to add context before sharing it with another chat. You can even add new captions to photos and videos when forwarding them.
Sharing Documents with Captions
Sharing documents just got better too! Whether it’s a newspaper article or a work-related file, you can add a caption before sharing to provide extra context and information.
Chat Lock: Elevating Privacy for Your Intimate Conversations
To help keep your messages private and secure, WhatsApp has introduced a new feature called – Chat Lock. It adds an extra layer of protection to your most intimate conversations.
With Chat Lock, you can take the thread out of the inbox and safeguard specific chats in a separate folder – accessible only with your device password or biometric! The contents of the locked chat will remain discreet, even in your notifications.
How to Lock a Chat
To lock a chat, simply tap the name of a one-to-one or group chat and select the lock option. To reveal the locked chats, gently pull down on your inbox and enter your phone password or use your biometric authentication.
Additional options include the ability to lock companion devices and create custom passwords for your chats. This means you can have a unique password specifically for your chats, separate from your phone’s password.
Edit Your WhatsApp Messages
Among the WhatsApp’s new features there is one that you will like the most! Edit Messages. Forget those moments when a typo slips through or when you wish you could add more context to a sent message. From now on, you can edit your sent messages!
All you need to do is long-press on a sent message and select ‘Edit’ from the menu within fifteen minutes after sending.
Don’t worry about your recipients being left in the dark about the changes. Edited messages will show a clear ‘edited’ tag, ensuring that those you are chatting with are aware of the correction without revealing the edit history.
WhatsApp Channels
In June, WhatsApp introduced Channels, a new feature that offers a simple, reliable, and private way to stay updated with important information from people and organizations. In the new ‘Updates tab‘, alongside ‘Status‘, you can now follow channels of your choice.
Channels serve as one-way broadcast tools for admins to share text, photos, videos, stickers, and polls with their followers. To make it easier for you to discover channels, we are creating a searchable directory where you can find updates from your favorite sports teams, local officials, hobbies, and more. You can also access channels through invite links shared in chats, emails, or posted online.
Additional info:
- As a channel admin, your phone number and profile photo will remain hidden from followers.
- Following a channel will not reveal your phone number to the admin or other followers, ensuring your choice of who to follow remains private.
- Channel history will be stored on servers for up to 30 days only.
- Admins can choose to block screenshots and forwards from their channel.
- Admins have control over who can follow their channel and whether the channel should be discoverable in the directory.
Silence Unknown Callers and Privacy Checkup
WhatsApps’s new feature called Silence Unknown Callers empowers you with more privacy and control over your incoming calls. This feature automatically filters out spam, scams, and calls from unknown numbers, offering increased protection. While these calls won’t ring on your phone, they will still be visible in your Call list, just in case it’s from someone important.
The Privacy Checkup feature aims to ensure that everyone knows about the protection options available on WhatsApp.
With this user-friendly feature, you can easily navigate through essential privacy settings, choosing the level of protection that suits you best. Simply select ‘Start checkup’ in your Privacy settings, and you will be guided through various privacy layers that strengthen the security of your messages, calls, and personal information.
Conclusion: WhatsApp’s New Features
With enhanced privacy measures, intuitive tools, and the convenience of following channels, users can enjoy a seamless and secure communication experience. The future holds even more exciting possibilities as WhatsApp continues to evolve and innovate! Stay tuned.
More WhatsApp Related Articles:
The Best Way to Fix WhatsApp Images Not Showing in Gallery
WhatsApp Images and Videos Not Downloading? Here’s How to Fix It
Follow us