The “WhatsApp” application, owned by the “Meta” company, launched a feature that users of the application have long been waiting for since its appearance more than a decade ago, due to their desire to preserve the privacy of their conversations from intruders, whether they are close or strangers.
Thanks to the new WhatsApp feature, users can now ensure that their conversations are safe from prying eyes.
And the new feature – called “Chat Lock”, that is, conversation lock – allows you to protect your private conversations with a password.
Locked messages are locked in a separate folder with the sender’s name hidden, even from others who have access to your phone.
This feature was announced by the owner of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, on his official Facebook page, and aims to enhance the privacy of users in chats on WhatsApp in a safer way than before.
In the context, WhatsApp said – in a post on its blog – that “our passion is finding new ways to help keep your messages private and secure.”
How to use the new feature
To lock a chat:
- Open the WhatsApp application.
- Click on the name of an individual or group chat.
- You will now see the Lock option, which asks you to enter your device password or biometrics to secure that chat.
After doing this step, new messages that come to the user in this chat or from this person will become hidden, and they can only be seen after dragging slowly down to show the locked chats folder, and the user only has to click on the folder and unlock by fingerprint to see the new incoming messages .
The “Chat Lock” feature is now available to all users of the WhatsApp application, whether they are users of the “iOS” or “Android” system, and the company said that it plans to enhance the feature during the next few months, so that it can be used on accompanying devices. When using one WhatsApp account on multiple phones, in addition to the ability to create a custom password for chats that is different from the password for the same phone.
WhatsApp explained – in a post on its blog – that “locking the chat removes the message thread from the inbox and places it in a folder of its own that can only be accessed using your device password or biometrics, such as a fingerprint.” It also automatically hides the contents of that chat in notifications as well.
And WhatsApp added, “This feature will be great for people who have a reason to share their phone from time to time with a family member, or those moments when someone else keeps your phone at the very moment that a private message arrives.”
It is worth noting that the “Chat Lock” feature is being rolled out, along with other new options, “over the next few months,” according to the blog post.