WhatsApp’s ‘View Once’ May Come to Text Messages

WhatsApp’s “View Once” feature may expand beyond photos and videos, with the company reportedly looking to bring it to text messages.

WhatsApp has had the ability to send View Once pictures and videos for some time, but the feature has been noticeably absent from text messages. According to WeBetaInfo, an unreleased beta shows the company may finally be unveiling the feature.

WeBetaInfo describes the feature below:

As you can see in this screenshot, there is a new special button placed next to the chat bar. If you look at the send button carefully, you can notice there is a lock symbol within the button: it means you’re sending a view once text. But what’s a view once text? As you can imagine, the view once text will disappear from the conversation when the recipient opens it so it is not possible to read the view once text again. Note that, since this feature is under development, the layout of the view once text bubble and the send button may change before the release.

This is very useful when you share very important information and you want to immediately delete them from the recipient’s phone for added privacy so you don’t even need to delete the view once text for everyone since it will be automatically deleted. As happens with view once images and videos, it is not possible to forward and copy view once text messages. About screenshots, they should also be blocked but we will give you a confirmation when a future update is out.

If WeBetaInfo is correct, this new feature would be a major addition to WhatsApp, giving people even more privacy options.