Billions of smartphone owners rely on WhatsApp to send messages and share content. From the organizational group at the university or in the sports club, to family members, to friends and the status of all these people. Very few want to do without the messenger and its functions, but those who know these tricks have a little more from the most used messenger.
The WhatsApp default setting saves all shared files on the smartphone. If you receive and send a lot of video and photo material, you can quickly reach the limits of your storage space. To do this, go to the WhatsApp settings on both iPhone and Android devices and select the “Storage and data” option under “Chats”. If the “Visibility of media” function is activated there, media will be saved on the smartphone. If you don’t want that, you just have to deactivate the option.
If you have already navigated to this menu, you can do something there to prevent too much use of your mobile data. On the iPhone the option is called “Reduced data consumption”, on Android smartphones “Use less data for calls”. WhatsApp then provides lower-quality voice or video calls. In addition, on the same screen, under “Automatic Media Download”, users can decide for themselves which media should be downloaded via a mobile connection and which via a WLAN connection.
If you want a contact to stay at the top of the list of messages, you can pin them there. Even other, more recent messages only end up in the overview afterwards. To do this, simply mark the desired chat on Android and tap on the pushpin that then appears. On the iPhone, swipe the desired chat from left to right and then select the “Pin” option.
Many group and organization chats often result in things being discussed that are not of interest to you. Or an event that has already been canceled is discussed further. If you want to stay in these groups but don’t want to receive dozens of notifications from them, you can simply mute them: mark the desired chat on Android and tap the crossed-out loudspeaker – done. On iOS, swipe the chat from left to right, then choose Silent from the More menu.
In the chats themselves, some people find it easier to express themselves if they can bold or italicize what they say, or if they can cross out something. WhatsApp offers two options for this: either you mark the corresponding text passage and select the desired font in the menu that then opens. Or you can write in bold, italics or strikethrough using character commands by putting asterisks (*) at the beginning and end of the corresponding passage for bold; for italics, underscores ( _ ) and strikethrough for the “similar to” symbol (~).
If you want to know which contact is texting or calling without having to see the cell phone, you can assign individual ring tones. To do this, call up the desired chat and tap on its contact. In the list below the shared media you will find the option “My notifications”. There you put a checkmark in “My notifications” and then select new sounds for messages and ringtones and, if necessary, the type of vibration.
Some messages are more important than others, such as those containing addresses, appointments, telephone numbers or bank details. You can bookmark them so that they don’t get lost. To do this, mark the desired message and give it an asterisk. Now the starred message is in the associated contact as well as a list that collects all starred messages. This can be reached on Android devices under the three-dot menu at the top right, on iPhones it can be found in the contact or group information that you open by tapping on the name in a chat.
The broadcast function allows one and the same message to be sent as a private message to several contacts and is of great use, for example, for sending invitations. To do this, simply call up the three-point menu at the top right and select the “New broadcast” function. Then select the desired person from the contact list and confirm with the green tick at the bottom right. After the broadcast list has been created, you can write messages as usual and send them privately to the desired people. The broadcast list then appears in the chat list. The broadcast function is placed more prominently on iPhones and can be selected directly from the chat list.
Especially in larger groups, it can keep track if the option is activated that messages delete themselves after a certain time. To do this, call up the three-point menu in the respective chat under Android and select “Self-deleting messages”. Now you have the choice between a period of 24 hours, a week, 90 days or the default setting “never”. The procedure is the same on the iPhone, but you first have to select “on” or “off” before you see the time period options when you select “on”.
If a chat has many participants or is going back and forth intensively, you sometimes want to go into more detail about what was written. So you mark the message you want, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, and tap the reply icon. It’s even easier by swiping the corresponding message from left to right – it then automatically appears above the tip field as a quote to which you only have to reply.
