WhatsApp New Features: From Video Calls on WhatsApp Web to Encrypted Backups and more

WhatsApp is one of the most widely used social and business applications across the world. The company behind it, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook keeps adding and updating new features to WhatsApp to keep the app friendly and exciting for the users. Recently, it has introduced new features, like disappearing messages. Let's take a look at some of WhatsApp's latest and upcoming features. 

WhatsApp Disappearing Messages 

This feature was added to the app a while ago and has been used by people since then. Using this feature, WhatsApp users can send messages that automatically get deleted from the chat after 7 days. Now, WhatsApp is reducing that timeframe to just 24 hours, meaning that once users send a disappearing message, it will be gone in a span of one day. Users can switch on the 'Disappearing Message' option in the settings. There are also rumours that WhatsApp is working on a 'Disappearing Images' feature. 

Video and Voice Call From WhatsApp Web

WhatsApp users have been asking for support for voice and video call on the Web version of the app for years now, and WhatsApp is finally delivering on the users' demands. Now, the video and voice calling is coming to the desktop version of the app. These voice and video calls will be end to end encrypted for data protection. As of now, the WhatsApp web version of the app only supports one to one calls at the time. However, the company has plans to introduce a group calling feature to the web app soon. 

Dual WhatsApp - Users can use WhatsApp on Multiple Devices

As of now, users can only install WhatsApp on their phones and computers. However, going forward, the company will increase this limit from 2 devices to four devices. It is possible that these new devices could be tablets and other devices. 

Encrypted Chat Backup 

While WhatsApp chats have end-to-end encryption, the backup of these chats is either stored in smartphones or Google Drive, which are not end-to-end encrypted. However, WhatsApp is planning to introduce a new encrypted chat backup option. This encrypted chat backup feature will improve user privacy and save their accounts from getting hacked and having their data leaked.  

Mute Videos Before Uploading Stories 

WhatsApp is going to add this useful feature to the app where users will have the ability to mute the audio in their stories before they are uploaded to the app. It's a useful option many users had been requesting. This feature is already available in Instagram reels and stories and it was only a matter of time before the feature was added to WhatsApp.