WhatsApp rolls out ‘View Once’ feature that deletes photos, videos after opening

WhatsApp has rolled out a new feature called 'View Once', that deletes photos and videos from the chat after they have been opened, giving users even more control over their privacy. For added privacy, you can now send photos and videos that disappear from your WhatsApp chat after the recipient has opened them once.

"Media will not be saved to the recipient's Photos or Gallery. Once you send a view once photo or video, you won't be able to view it again," WhatApp said in a statement on Tuesday.

The feature has been rolled out to everyone starting this week, and WhatsApp is looking forward to "feedback on this new way to send private and disappearing media". For example, you might send a View Once photo of some new clothes you're trying on at a store, a quick reaction to a moment in time, or something sensitive like a Wi-Fi password. "As with all the personal messages you send on WhatsApp, View Once media is protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot see them," the company said. 

They will also be clearly marked with a new "one-time" icon. After the media has been viewed, the message will appear as "opened" to avoid any confusion about what was happening in the chat at the time.

You can only see if a recipient has opened a view once photo or video if they have read receipts turned on. You can't forward, save, star, or share photos or videos that were sent or received with view once media enabled.

Another Facebook company, Instagram, also has the view-once features in direct messages. 

In November last year, WhatsApp launched the 'Disappearing Messages' feature that automatically deletes new messages sent to a chat after seven days when turned on.

If a user doesn't open WhatsApp in the seven-day period, the message will disappear.

If a disappearing message is forwarded to a chat with disappearing messages off, the message won't disappear in the forwarded chat. "If a user creates a backup before a message disappears, the disappearing message will be included in the backup. Disappearing messages will be deleted when a user restores from a backup," WhatsApp explained.

With IANS inputs