Essential Tips For WhatsApp Users

Essential Tips For WhatsApp Users

- Chandra Steele

The desire for encrypted communication is no longer limited to spies, informants, and journalists. Amidst news of widespread surveillance, secure messaging apps are growing in popularity. More than 1 billion people now use WhatsApp every day, sending 55 billion messages, 4.5 billion photos, and 1 billion videos.

WhatsApp makes it easy to keep in touch with far-flung friends on the cheap. It’s free to text and call as long as you have a Wi-Fi or data connection.

The IM-style service is more popular than the very similar Facebook Messenger, likely because it works on feature phones, which are common outside the US, and because it isn’t directly tied to Facebook, despite being owned by the huge social network.

Whatever you’re using WhatsApp for, though, you likely don’t know everything it can do. Here are our top tips.

FIND ME:

If you don’t mind being caught in an “I’m five minutes away” fib, you might want to try WhatsApp’s Live Location feature. Share your location by opening a chat, clicking on the plus sign, and selecting Location, where you’ll see an option to Share Live Location. It’s a handy way to find someone in a crowd or to get an idea how long you have to wait before your friend shows up.

GET PINNED:

Put the person you chat with more than anyone at the top of your messages list. Go to the Chats tab and find the chat you want to make a priority. Swipe right and select Pin.

PRYING EYES:

Do you want to be friendly but not give too much away on WhatsApp? Then protect your privacy by going to Settings > Account > Privacy. There you can change who can see when you were last active, your profile photo, and status. You can also turn off read receipts, though you will then in turn not be able to see others’ read receipts.

BACK IT UP: