One of the most popular instant messengers today, WhatsApp, regularly receives updates and continues to acquire new features. However, how to use them is not always obvious to the consumer. At the same time, among the options there are also very useful ones that can greatly facilitate the experience of working with the messenger and communicating with friends, relatives or work colleagues. We have collected for you the most interesting in our opinion and will tell you about them in an extensive material consisting of several parts.
It’s worth noting right away that not all points may be something new to you. However, from all the heaps of possibilities, almost everyone will certainly find something that they did not know before. Begin!
Send your location data
WhatsApp is known to let you send photos and videos, as well as share contact details from your address book and documents, but you can also send your location. This is very convenient if you are meeting a friend in an area that is unfamiliar to him. At the same time, in the application settings you can select an item that will allow you to share data about your location in real time for 15 minutes, 1 or 8 hours.
Go to the desired chat - click on the paper clip to the right of the message window - location - share location - select time frame.
WHATSAPP MESSENGER AND ITS ADVANTAGES
To confirm the above words, I will give some facts and figures:
- WhatsApp is already used by more than one billion users worldwide.
- The messenger is used daily in more than 180 countries around the world.
- Around the globe, people exchange more than 55 billion messages with each other per day.
- The company has already celebrated its 11th anniversary since its founding on February 24, 2009.
And the developers, as they themselves claim, are not going to stop there, so they continue to periodically release some updates, which allows them to continue to use this wonderful messenger.
Main features of WhatsApp:
- Messages (text correspondence in real time with other users).
- Chats (creation of individual and group chats).
- Files (the ability to forward, i.e. attach all kinds of files to your messages).
- Calls (free audio and video calls from one messenger to another). And all this is done, of course, for free.
FAQ
Is it possible to set wallpaper for a specific chat?
To set the background for correspondence, you need to open it, click on the ellipses at the top of the screen, “Wallpaper” and select the appropriate option.
Can I forward several messages from another conversation to contacts at once?
Yes it is possible. You should press one message, and then mark other SMS. Regardless of the order in which they are checked, they will appear in the dialog in the order in which they were originally sent.
Chips for messages
Everyone loves to chat for different reasons. Therefore, it is doubly important to know the secrets associated with sending, receiving and storing messages in WhatsApp chats. Moreover, you can try them on yourself or even on others (even without their knowledge). Let's figure out how this can be done.
Making stylish fonts
If you have never tried changing the font style in WhatsApp, now is the time to try. This can add personality to the message and simply add variety to the correspondence.
You can design the application font in 4 different ways:
- Make italic font - add underscore around the edges (_Example_);
- Cross out what is written - use the tilde sign ~ (~Example~);
- Make the text bold - add an asterisk (* Example *);
- To use the developers' font, you will need to add backticks, three on each side (“`Example“`).
It is important not to confuse backquotes with an apostrophe, otherwise nothing will work.
If you can't imagine the difference between a regular font and a developer font, you can take a closer look at the image below. It is immediately noticeable that the second font is much narrower and more compact.
How to get read receipts
There is a fairly simple way to find out when a message was delivered to a user and when it was read. To do this, just open the chat and hold your finger on the desired message.
A column will appear with different choices. Click Data. A new window will open in which two information will be available:
- Read - date and exact time;
- Delivered - date and time.
This way you can always calculate when a message was read and whether it was delivered at all. At least this trick will definitely be useful for girls who suspect their boyfriends of lying.
Learning to send messages without the Internet
One of the most interesting secrets with messages available to WhatsApp users is the ability to queue them in a chat. This became available thanks to the latest app updates.
What is the essence of the option?
You can write messages without an Internet connection, click “Send” and then, when the network appears, they will automatically be uploaded to the desired chat.
The only thing to remember is that messages may not be sent. Therefore, immediately after the Internet connection appears, you need to check if the messenger delivered the messages.
Adviсe
Tip #1
If a message to a group or personal correspondence was sent by mistake, the user can delete it within an hour for everyone. To do this, you need to hold down SMS, tap on the trash can icon and select “Delete for everyone.”
Tip #2
In the “Personal Data Visibility” section, in addition to setting the last visit, you can hide your avatar, profile information and status, and also prohibit sending invitations to groups.
In addition to the main capabilities of WhatsApp, such as text and voice messaging, audio and video communication, there are secret functions. The user can configure privacy so that contacts cannot see when he was last online, whether the SMS was delivered and whether it was read. You can also format individual messages, add them to favorites, and send them to other interlocutors.
SECRETS OF WHATSAPP: ENTERTAINMENT
There is not much entertainment in the WhatsApp application, but it is quite enough for quick and fun messaging.
- The simplest thing you can do is a beautiful colored background.
“CHATS” - “MENU” - “Settings” - “Chats” - “Wallpaper”. In the window that opens, you will be given many opportunities to select any background or photo from the “Gallery”.
- And, of course, “emojis”, “stickers” and “GIFs”. A long-awaited feature that has pleased many. Everything is simple here.
In the column for entering a message, click on the “Emoji” button - a panel will open, at the bottom of which all three icons are located. Only “stickers” have a “+” sign for downloading additional pictures; the others do not have this option.
- The last feature I wanted to talk about is the square sign located under the message line.
When you open it, a lot of different options appear: choosing a language, theme, setting lines and symbols, changing the size of the keyboard, etc. By clicking on the “More” sign, you can additionally add “emoticons”, “stickers” and themes.
Share geolocation
Using the WhatsApp application, you can send your current location to your interlocutor. To do this, open the desired dialog and click on the add content button - plus or paperclip. In the list that opens, select the type of data to be sent, in our case “Place”.
There is also a convenient function for constantly transmitting location for a specific chat. This way, your interlocutor will be able to know where you are at any time.
Limit app cache
WhatsApp really likes to save as much information as possible so that it is available offline. Even if you disable automatic downloading of absolutely any content, the size of the mobile application of a popular social service will inevitably grow day by day. For particularly active users who regularly use WhatsApp to correspond and transmit any possible information, the size of its program inevitably increases beyond any comfortable levels. It can weigh more than one or even two gigabytes, and this is par for the course. It’s good that WhatsApp has a fairly advanced tool that shows exactly how much memory space each specific conversation takes up, and makes it possible to delete all content that is useless at a given time.
How to do this: go to “Settings” → “Data and storage” → “Storage”, delete data that is not needed.
SECRETS OF WHATSAPP: SAVING TIME
You can spend different amounts of time on the same actions, but since everyone values personal minutes, I suggest you use the hidden functions of WhatsApp for more productive and faster work.
- There are situations when it is more convenient to use a computer than a smartphone.
Undoubtedly, there are “pros” who do everything quickly on the phone: write, send important presentations to clients and make large mailings, but for some it is easier and more convenient to do this on a PC keyboard.
To save time, you need to install a desktop application that synchronizes data from your phone. There are two options to choose from: the first is the web version, and the second is downloading from the official website.
Then on your smartphone, open the “MENU” - “WhatsApp Web” and simply scan the QR code from the application downloaded to your computer. After all the actions taken, the entire WhatsApp messenger interface is transferred to the PC screen.
- If you are distracted or annoyed by the sounds of incoming notifications, you can turn them off.
“CHATS” - desired conversation - “MENU” - “Mute”. And choose from the proposed options the period of your peace of mind, for example, 8 hours, 1 week or 1 year.
- If you need to find an important lost message, you can use the search in two directions:
- In all chats at once - “CHATS” - “Search”.
- In one particular chat - “MENU” - “Search”.
- If you wish, you can highlight a certain person with a sound effect in order to recognize by the sound that the message came from him:
Select a contact – “MENU” – “View contact” – “Individual notifications” – “Use” (check the box) and make the “Chat notifications” settings: sound, vibration, pop-up notification, light, priority notifications.
- In addition to “Chat Notifications”, here you can also set up “Call Notifications” to recognize friends and acquaintances who called immediately by ringtones.
“Contacts” - select the desired contact - “MENU” - “View contact” - “Individual notifications” - “Use” (check the box) and make the “Call notifications” settings: ringtone, vibration.
- There are life situations when you need to calm down an emotional interlocutor who is constantly sending messages, but there is no time, energy or desire to answer them.
In this case, you can turn off the phone, the sound, or temporarily block it.
Select a contact – “MENU” – “More” – “Block”.
- The message feed can also save time.
If you are conducting a dialogue in a chat among a large number of people on a certain topic, which implies a series of logical answers, then in this case it is more convenient to use a dialogue in the “question-answer” style, inviting interested interlocutors to do the same for each thematic chain.
- Sometimes it happens that valuable information from the interlocutor dangles in the correspondence until you accidentally delete it.
Therefore, to avoid such incidents, it is necessary to save all important messages in the “Favorites” folder.
Press on the selected message for two or three seconds - in the mini-window that appears, click on the asterisk “*” icon. To find it in the future, just go to “CHATS” - “MENU” and select “Selected messages”.
- There was a period when the WhatsApp application did not have the ability to send various types of files, but was content with documents in minimal formats: xlsx, pdf and docx.
Files containing pictures also could not be sent, since they were highly compressed during the sending process.
Now, when sending messages, you need to press on the “paperclip” and select any of the proposed options in the window that opens - “Document”, “Gallery”, “Camera”, “Audio”, etc., based on the original file type.
- WhatsApp messenger allows you to enjoy the cool picture-in-picture feature when making video calls.
Its convenience is that the user has the opportunity, leaving a video call in the small lower window, to simultaneously do other things using the main screen of the smartphone.
Select the required contact – “video call” (video camera icon). To move the image to the lower right window, click on the arrow in the upper left corner. You can return it by clicking on the frame image inside the video call.
- If for some reason you need two applications on one phone with two different numbers, then just use the App Cloner application. It is quite easy to use and makes copies of all popular applications in a matter of seconds.
- There are situations when you need to quickly send an invitation to an event. To do this, go to:
“MENU” - “Settings” - “Invite a friend”. This WhatsApp feature is convenient because the invited person, by clicking on your link, immediately goes from his smartphone or computer to a ready-made field for entering a response.
- Not so long ago, in order to send a “contact” you had to first “copy” it and then “paste” it. Now everything is a little simpler:
"CHATS" - "Contact" - "MENU" - View contact - "MENU" - "Share". Select the contact you want to send to and click on the green arrow in the lower right corner.
- Suppose some chat has already become quite an eyesore for you, but it is a pity or impossible to delete it, since it may still be useful.
For such cases, there is an ideal solution - send everything to the archive.
“CHATS”, select “Contact” with a 2-second press - the “down arrow” icon (at the top of the screen). After this, the message “Archived” appears at the end of all chats. To return, you need to go “to the archive,” highlight the contact and click on the “up arrow” icon.
- Another cool feature of WhatsApp is audio messages.
It is not always possible to talk directly or write a long message to your interlocutor, so audio is an ideal option.
“CHATS” - “Contact” - “Microphone”. As soon as you click on the “microphone” sign located at the bottom of the screen, an audio recording immediately begins with a second-by-second time report. At the end of the recording, you need to remove your finger from the button and the finished message will automatically “fly away” to the interlocutor. If you made a mistake or simply changed your mind about sending it, then to delete it you need to slide from right to left without lifting your finger from the microphone.
- The next secret of WhatsApp is traffic.
The WhatsApp application automatically downloads everything that comes to it, so at your discretion you can make settings that allow you to save traffic, i.e. use Wi-Fi to download large files.
“MENU” - “Settings” - “Data and storage” - “Autoload media”. And, opening “Mobile network”, “Wi-Fi” and “Roaming” one by one, check all the necessary “ticks”.
Additional functions
The main features that will make your work on WhatsApp easier can be found by rummaging through the settings. Below are the main features and how to use them.
Dark theme
The developers of WhatsApp decided to keep up with other instant messengers and social networks and added the ability to install a dark theme. You can enable the theme on Android as follows:
- Open “Settings”, go to the “Chat” section.
- In the “Screen” item, select “Theme”, then “Dark”.
Note: In the “Screen” section you can also change the wallpaper that will be displayed in the background of correspondence. The user can set any image from the gallery, fill the background with a solid color, remove the wallpaper altogether, or return to the standard option.
In WhatsApp on iPhone, the theme is tied to the current design on the device. To activate the dark theme in the messenger, you need to enable it in your phone settings. To do this, go to the settings, open the “Display and Brightness” section, select “Dark”.
Block annoying users
Oddly enough, WhatsApp receives no less stupid and annoying messages than many other instant messengers. It’s just that they arrive on Viber due to the fault of individual companies, but in this social service there are more complaints against individual users who regularly write and call with unknown intentions. I came across this from my own example: people of Turkish nationality keep calling my wife without any specific proposals - they are just talking nonsense. The good thing is that you can block them in just a few simple steps.
How to do this: go to the additional information menu for a specific user, and then select the “Block” option.
Monitoring other people's correspondence
If the user has a little free time, access to someone else’s phone, and is not afraid of responsibility for violating the confidentiality of correspondence, then you can use the WhatsApp Web secret to access a third-party account.
To do this, you will need to scan the barcode from the phone application of the person whose chats the user wants to view. This can be done using the previously stated instructions. Now the user will have access to third-party correspondence.
It is worth recalling that such actions can lead not only to criminal punishment, but also significantly worsen relations with the person whose secret life has been violated. However, you can easily find out about such surveillance using the following WhatsApp secret.
Use text formatting
Just like Telegram, WhatsApp also makes it very easy to use text formatting that will help highlight the most important things from each individual message. To do this, you do not need to select the required text and go through any additional menus. Instead, you can use auxiliary symbols, which simply need to be placed at the beginning and end of a specific phrase without spaces. This will make it possible to highlight the text in italics, make it bold, or even cross it out if there is really any need for this. This way you can do it several times faster.
How to do it: Use underscores to the left and right of it to make italic text, asterisks to make a word or phrase bold, and curly lines to turn regular text into strikethrough.
Audio messages
Let's imagine a situation where the user is busy cooking, and he urgently needs to respond to a message from a friend or boss. Voice assistant Siri (iOS) and Google Assistant come to the rescue. To get your assistant to send messages, you need to say “Hey Siri” or “Okay Google” and then say a phrase like: “Send WhatsApp to Vitalik.” By dictating a message, you can control that it will fly away in text form in a few moments. Very convenient, isn't it?
Hide your “Online” status from strangers
The previous tip works if the user has not intentionally limited the display of his status using a separate function of the popular messenger. Yes, you have the opportunity to hide the display of the “Online” line from absolutely everyone who also uses WhatsApp.
How to do this: you need to select the “Nobody” option in the “Settings” → “Account” → “Privacy” → “Was” menu.
How to disable individual chat in WhatsApp
WhatsApp groups are certainly a wonderful invention, but sometimes they become really overwhelming, especially if they consist of twenty or thirty people.
If users are too talkative and won't stop typing, the app offers the option to mute the group and stop receiving their notifications.
- For Android users, simply select a group and tap the speaker icon in the top right corner.
- For iOS users, the procedure is very similar: after selecting a group, “Mute” will appear on the display.
Web version
WhatsApp messenger has a web version. You can communicate with friends, colleagues and relatives not only from your phone, but also through a browser on your computer:
- Go to web.whatsapp.com.
- Open the messenger application on your phone.
- Go to menu or settings and select the WhatsApp Web option.
- Point your phone at the QR code, which is located on the main page of the website of the web version of the messenger.
Disable notifications
If you need to turn off notifications from a specific subscriber, then click on his name, select “Do not disturb” and specify the period of time during which you do not want to receive notifications from him.
We wanted to prepare the top 10 WhatsApp secrets that you didn’t know about, but the publication included even more hidden functions. They will make working with the messenger easier and more convenient.
Hiding and interesting features of Yandex Browser that you might not know about
How to convert voice to text using Android programs?
18 most useful and simply best programs for Android phones
Rating of the best antiviruses for Android phones
Top 5 best e-readers for Android
The best multicookers of 2022 - rating of reliable models
TOP 15 best and most useful applications for iPhone and other iOS devices
How to find out the name of a houseplant from a photo?
Add filters to the photos you send
WhatsApp is trying its best to remind us all that it belongs to FaceBook, which also owns the popular social service Instagram. That's why the messenger even has special tools for basic photo processing. One of the many filters can be applied to any pictures that are sent to a group chat or to a specific interlocutor - it should emphasize the mood of the photo. We dwell on this possibility, among other things, because it does not have the most obvious mechanism of activation.
How to do this: you need to click on the button with the camera image in any of the dialogs, take a new photo or select a photo from the gallery, and then swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen to open a menu with filters.
Create an event
A small feature of WhatsApp that many will like - if the other person sent you a message mentioning the date, you can make a quick reminder in the calendar. A great way to save important information and not forget about the event!
What do we have to do? The date will be automatically underlined:
- Place your finger on the underlined text and hold for a few seconds;
- An additional window will appear where you need to select “Create event”;
- If necessary, give the messenger access to your calendar;
- Enter the name, location and time, as well as other details, and save the event to your calendar.
Done – you will receive a reminder at the right time! Now you definitely won’t forget about the coming day.
How to disable last login time on WhatsApp
To avoid showing your status to other users, you need to use a trick that will allow you to become invisible. Many people read the last login time to see if the user received the message they sent.
To hide the last access time, you need to go into settings, click “Chat” and finally “Privacy”, then set the “Last access” option to “No”.
