For countries like India,
WhatsApp has become the default way of mobile communication. It has replaced
SMS completely and soon might do so for VOIP calls as well. WhatsApp has more
than a billion active users worldwide, and it is extremely popular in
Asian countries. And while it might look like a simple SMS replacement app on
the top, it’s filled with many rich features underneath.
Read on to know all about the little features, the hidden tricks
and tips and lot more about WhatsApp.
1. Use WhatsApp on Your PC
WhatsApp users have been asking for this feature for years and finally we have it. It’s not exactly an app, it’s not even a standalone website, it’s a mix. You’ll need your phone around to be able to use WhatsApp from your PC but at least you can do it now.
To get started, open your web
browser and go to “web.whatsapp.com”. Now, on your phone, tap the three dotted
menu button and select “WhatsApp Web”.
You’ll be asked to scan the QR
code you see on the website on your desktop with the phone’s camera. Once it’s
scanned, you’ll be connected.
It’s important to note that
both the phone and the PC need to be connected to the internet for this feature
to work. But it doesn’t have to be the same network. Slightly tedious? Sure,
but at least now you can continue your WhatsApp conversations from your PC as
well.
2. Easily Share Documents
For people who use WhatsApp for
business purposes, it is now easier than ever to share documents like PDFs with
contacts.
To share a document, tap the “Attach” menu in the top bar, and select
“Document”.
A document picker will now show
up. Navigate to where the file is stored and select it. The file will now be
shared in the conversation and it will show up as a widget with the document
name, its size and the page count.
In the same way, you can also
attach your current location in a WhatsApp chat.
3. Send a Mass Message
WhatsApp is great for having
group conversations. But what if you want to blast off a message to multiple
contacts, without creating a group? There’s the Broadcast feature for you. It
works much like Mail Merge, but it’s a thousand times simpler.
Tap the three dotted menu
button and select “New Broadcast”.
You’ll be asked to add the contacts you want to send the message to. From the
chat screen, type out your message, tap “Send”
and you’re done.
4. Hide Last Seen and Disable Read
Receipts
The two blue check marks have
achieved pop culture status. It means your message has been read. But what if
you don’t want other people to know when exactly you’ve read their message?
Simply disable the feature.
Go to “Settings” -> “Account” -> “Privacy” and turn off the “Read Receipts” option.
If you want to hide your Last
Seen status, select “Last Seen” from the
same page and change it from “Everyone”
to “Nobody”.
5. Block
Annoying People
Much like life itself, you’ll
need to block some people from WhatsApp from time to time. Here’s how to do it.
From the same “Privacy” section, tap “Blocked Contacts” followed by the “Add” button and select the contact you
want to block.
6. Mute
Conversations
We all need some peace and
quiet, especially from those family groups in WhatsApp where irrelevant
messages are forwarded all day. To mute a conversation, tap the three dotted
menu button and select “Mute”. You can
choose the time from 8 hours to a year, and don’t forget to uncheck the “Show notifications” option.
7. Turn Off
Media Auto Download to Save Data
We’re all a part of hilarious
groups that send the same viral video every single time. If you’re on 3G or
even on a capped Wi-Fi connection, all that data can add up. By default,
WhatsApp downloads all media in the background, automatically.
To stop this behavior, go to “Settings” -> “Data Usage” -> “Media Auto-Download”. Now, you’ll see
options for when using Wi-Fi or mobile data. Tap on each and you can disable
auto download for Images, Audio and Videos individually.
8. Manually Delete WhatsApp Media
If you’re using a file manager
like Solid Explorer or something that came with your phone, you can easily
navigate to the WhatsApp folder on your phone’s internal memory to see just how
much space all the media is taking up.
WhatsApp media is divided into
folders like Audio, Images, Video and more. So you can just go into those
folders, select all files or the ones you want to delete and just delete them.
That’s it.
You can also copy them to your
PC by connecting your phone to your PC and then navigating to these
folders.
9. View Read
Receipts
Viewing read receipts for one
on one conversations is quite simple. Just long press on the message in
question, select the “i” icon and a popup
will tell you what you need to know.
When you’re in a group, the
process is similar. Only you’ll see a list of contacts who have read your
message. Tapping a contact will give you a detailed view of when the message
was delivered and when it was read.
10. Set Custom Notifications for
Contacts
If you want some of your loved
ones to stand out when it comes to WhatsApp, just give them a custom
notification for their messages.
To do this, tap on the person’s
profile and select “Custom notifications”.
11. Star Important Messages and
Get Back to Them
It’s easy to get lost when you
have lots of chats going on at the same time. If you’ve received something
important via WhatsApp, like directions to a place, you should star it so you
can go back to it easily.
To star a message, long press
any message and tap on the “Star”
button.
To view a starred message
later, tap the three-dotted-menu from the app’s homescreen and select “Starred messages”.
12. Optimize Data for Voice Calls
WhatsApp is one of the best
ways to make free calls to your friends over the internet. But WhatsApp has a
hidden feature to even make this better for slow internet connection.
Under “Settings” -> “Data Usage”, you’ll find an option
called “Low data usage”.
13. Customize Google Drive Backup
Android users can now backup
(with encryption) their entire chat history including voice messages, photos
and videos to Google Drive. It’s a great way to make sure your conversations
are never lost and we totally recommend you turn on this feature.
To enable it, tap the three
dotted menu button, select “Settings”
-> “Chats” -> “Chat backup” and tap on “Back up”.
From the same page, you can
also customize your backup. You can uncheck the “Include
videos” option to stop backup up videos and saving cloud space.
You can also select how often the backups take place.
14. Crop Videos and Edit Photos
Before Sending
If you send a lot of photos
using WhatsApp, you might know that WhatsApp now lets you edit them as well.
Simple things like cropping.
In fact, you can do this for
videos as well now. Tapping the crop icon will bring up a tool that will let
you select parts of the video to crop out.
15. Bold, Italics and More
A recent WhatsApp update has
added this really fun feature. It might seem straight out of a 90s Office app
but the ability to format text is certainly nice. And you can have some fun
with it. Everyone’s getting tired of using ALL CAPS as the only option for
emphasis. Well now, you can be a gentleman and use bold and italics.
Here’s how it works. Wrap the
text you want to format using modifier keys like asterisks to format the text.
Here are some examples:
Bold: Wrap the text with asterisks (*).
Italics: Wrap the text with an underscore (_).
Strikethrough: Wrap the text
with a tilde (~).
16. Send Messages With Your Voice
Using Google Now
There’s nothing cooler than
using your voice to make your phone do stuff, without even touching it. If
you’re familiar with Google Now, you already know that it lets you do things
like set an alarm, and call people using your voice.
You can now do the same for
WhatsApp messages.
Say “Ok, Google, send WhatsApp
message to (person name)” and Google Now will respond by asking you the
message.
You can also just say “Ok
Google, send WhatsApp Message to (person name), (message content)”.
17. Add Conversations as
Homescreen Shortcuts
If there are 2-3 conversations
you end up going to all the time, it’s better to just add a shortcut to them to
your launcher’s homescreen. To do this, just long press on the conversation
from the “Chats” screen and
select “Add chat shortcut”.
Also, you can use the WhatsApp widget to quickly jump into conversations.
That’s it from our end. Share
your favorite tips and tricks for WhatsApp in the comments below. Also, do you
use any third party apps to enhance your WhatsApp experience on Android?
Credit:androidbeat.com
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