In today’s world WhatsApp, is one of the best apps for connecting with friends, family, acquaintances and even for conducting business. It makes communication smooth and easy. One thing a lot of users do not like about it, is the fact that you can get added to random groups even by total strangers sometimes, and there is nothing you can do to prevent or stop it.
While some groups turn out to be very useful, that does little to ease the frustration that comes with knowing you never really have control over who can add you to them.
You could wake up one day and BOOM! You find yourself in 10 WhatsApp groups without warning. Groups that you may not want to be in at all. Sometimes leaving the group will just make everything awkward and you end up being in groups but you never interact with the other users.
After complaints for years from very many of its users, it appears WhatsApp may have been listening.
The facebook owned company (WhatsApp) has announced that it will let users decide/choose who can add them to group chats on the platform. The feature however, has just started rolling out so if you do not have it yet, be patient. It is coming.
VentureBeat, says WhatsApp will now let you choose between three options:
‘Nobody’ – If you do not want anybody to add you to any WhatsApp group.
‘My Contacts’ – If you want to limit the ability to add you to groups to people you have saved in your phone. This is the option to go with if you give out your phone number to people all the time.
‘Everyone’ – This is the current setting and with it, anyone can add you to a WhatsApp group.
How To
To stop anyone from adding you to WhatsApp groups, go to Settings > Privacy > Groups. Once there, you will be able to choose any of the three options which have been listed above.
This new feature comes less than two weeks after WhatsApp announced plans to curb the spread of misinformation by highlighting messages as “frequently forwarded” if they have been shared five or more times.
WhatsApp Advanced Search
WhatsApp also has plans to improve its chat search feature in an upcoming update. According to WABetaInfo, the messaging platform is currently working on the feature that will be rolled out soon.
With the Advanced Search functionality, the standard search tool on WhatsApp will be way more useful and will let users search through multiple types of messages. Since the current standard search on WhatsApp at the moment is very basic, this new functionality will definitely change things.
Advanced Search will also make it easier to filter search by videos, documents, GIFs, audio and links. In addition, the number of media files stored in WhatsApp’s storage will also be reflected on the interface. The search history will be stored in the application as well, and can be deleted with the touch of a button.
The Advance Search feature will roll out to all WhatsApp users later this year.
