1, 2, 3… poof - WhatsApp to roll out an Expiring Groups feature

SINCE its introduction, WhatsApp Groups have been the bane of the existence of many. Thankfully, the Meta-owned instant messaging platform will soon widely roll out Expiring Groups.

While they may not be needed or used by many, WhatsApp Groups play a role in almost every user's experience. Whether family chats, social groups or, of course, 'WhatsApp Work Groups', it has become hard to escape them.

More difficult has the experience become in silently exiting such groups without WhatsApp publicly announcing a user's departure. The new feature may not be the best solution to avoid rude exits from such chats. Still, the Expiring Group functionality is expected to ease the burden by simply self-destructing after a set date.

Independent WhatsApp reporting blog WABetaInfo, which first announced the latest speculation, said that by using the feature, it will be possible to make certain WhatsApp Groups expire, with users prompted to clean up the group when the chosen expiration date is reached.

"It will be possible to choose different expiring options for your groups when the feature will be released in a future update. It's important to note that the expiration of the group only happens on our end, as we are the ones setting the expiration date," the blog reported.

"We believe that the addition of this feature will offer an effective solution to a common problem where groups become disorganised and lose relevance over time. In addition, it provides users with a useful storage tool for managing groups over time and saving space, particularly for those groups created temporarily for specific events," WABetaInfo said.

According to other speculation around the functionality, WhatsApp for Android is developing the "now" option to immediately delete an expiring group outside of the initial expiration date set during the creation of the group.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp for iOS is already expected to see a ‘’custom date’’ option, which could see the "now" option removed for the operating system, with the group's deletion done through the custom date option.

Recently, IOL reported that the instant messenger would soon launch a Lock Chats feature for all WhatsApp users after the function was discovered among some beta testers.

According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is working on a feature which will allow users to lock specific chats using their fingerprint or pass code, available in a future update of the app.

The blog offered some insight into how the feature would work by explaining that after adding a chat to the list of locked conversations, it will be only available within the Locked Chats screen.

Once locked, it can only be accessed using the user's fingerprint or pass code, making it nearly impossible for anyone else to open the chat.

* If any of the new features mentioned above are yet to be available for you, it probably has yet to be rolled out for your device. It should be visible to all users within the coming weeks after the latest update.

IOL Tech