1. Disable media auto-download
If you're running low on mobile data, it might be worth turning of the automatic download of media in WhatsApp, at least until you hit the monthly reset.
To do this, head to Settings > Data usage. In this menu, ensure you untick the boxes in both When using mobile data and When roaming.
2. Switch your WhatsApp chat history between phones
An update that allows Google Drive backups should now have rolled out to all users. This is far and away the easiest method of moving your chat and media history between devices.
However, if for any reason you need to move your WhatsApp history over to a new device without using Google Drive, it's still a pretty painless procedure. All you need is a microSD card and a few minutes to spare.
- Insert the microSD card into the device that has WhatsApp on it
- In WhatsApp, go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup
- Remove the SD card and place it into your other device
- Install WhatsApp on the other device
- WhatsApp should detect the backup and prompt you to restore it, which you should do
If you need to move the backup, use a file explorer to find '/sdcard/WhatsApp' and move it to the correct folder.
3. Recover deleted WhatsApp messages
By default, WhatsApp backs up your messages every day at 4am. This means that if you've deleted any messages since then, but before the next auto-backup, you can recover them. To do this:
- Uninstall WhatsApp from your device (Settings > Apps > WhatsApp > Uninstall)
- Reinstall WhatsApp.
- Type your phone number into WhatsApp, then it should notify you that it's found a backup of your chats
- Tap Restore to get your deleted messages back
4. Hide 'Last seen', profile photo and status
Getting thrown into a big group chat filled with party guests and people you don't know can be bewildering. Suddenly, your profile picture is staring back at a chatroom full of strangers, who can also see your status and when you're reading messages. If I wanted a whole flock of strangers ogling and judging a photo of me, I'd have gone on Tinder.
Here's how to have better control over who sees this information on WhatsApp:
- Tap the Options icon at the top right of WhatsApp
- Go to Settings > Account > Privacy
- Go through the Last seen, Profile photo, and Status options, then set their visibility to 'Everyone', 'My contacts' or 'Nobody', depending on how much privacy you want
5. Know when you've been blocked
There are four ways to suss out whether someone has blocked you on WhatsApp. Each sign is largely meaningless by itself, but together they form a solid reason to believe that your friend doesn't want to be your friend.
Take note that WhatsApp has deliberately made it difficult to tell whether someone has blocked you or not, in order to maintain users' privacy. There's always an outlying chance that you're just being paranoid, even when all four of the below points apply.
Check the 'last seen' time
A contact's 'last seen' time appears in the top bar right under their name. If there's no information about when they were last online, this could be a bad sign. It doesn't necessarily mean that they've blocked you – it is possible to stop this information appearing without blocking someone. Your friend might just value their privacy, so don't go burning bridges just yet. Read on.
Check the double check
Check marks are WhatsApp's way of compounding your obsessive streak by ensuring that you know what's going on on the other end of the line.
The first check mark means that your message has been sent. When the second one appears, your message has been received by the recipient's phone. This doesn’t mean that the person has read your message, just that it is on their phone; when those check marks turn blue, that's when they have seen the message. If you see the check marks turn blue, they haven't blocked you, and everything is fine. Take a deep breath.
If your messages never get beyond that single, sad gray tick, you might have been blocked.
There's a vague chance they still love you, though, surely? Time to keep digging.
Do your calls go through?
Another indicator that your friend hates you is that all those desperate WhatsApp calls you make never go through.
Again, maybe their phone is broken, maybe they've changed their number, etc, etc, but if this one is true and the two signs above it are, too – well, thing's aren't looking good, are they?
Has their picture or profile changed?
If you notice that a contact hasn’t updated or changed their profile in a while, or they've had the same picture for months, this could mean that they’ve blocked you. Or that they just never update their profile. Maybe everything is fine.
Let's go a step further and check from a different account, meaning from a mutual friend’s smartphone. If you see here that your estranged friend's profile information and picture have changed, then we're sorry to break it you, but your friend has blocked you and, given how strangely you've been acting, with good reason.
Bonus method: Ask them
The final, and ultimate, way of knowing is to ask them. If they say yes, then they have blocked you. If they make up a terrible excuse, they have blocked you. But if the reason why they never respond to you seems plausible and they invite you to hang out, everything is OK. For now.
7. Mute annoying WhatsApp group chats
We've all been in that position where we've somehow been dragged into a group chat that we either didn't really want to be in in the first place or just don't want to receive notifications from every couple of minutes.
Rather than just leave the chat, which may offend some people, you can simply mute the chat so you stop receiving notifications from it.
- In WhatsApp, tap the Chats tab
- Tap the group you want to mute
- With the group open, tap the Options icon at the top right
- Tap Mute, then select the amount of time you want to mute the group for. You can also untick the Show notifications box so that you never hear from the group again until you decide otherwise
8. Create a home screen shortcut for your favorite chats
Do you have certain friends with whom you have constant stream-of-consciousness conversations, where you're non-stop WhatsApp'ing all day, every day?
If so, then you can create a shortcut icon to those conversations, which will appear on your Android home screen. This means you can jump straight into chats with your BFFs and important groups.
- In WhatsApp, tap the Chats tab.
- Tap and hold the conversation you want to create a shortcut for.
- When the list of options appears, tap Add conversation shortcut
- A shortcut displaying your contact's profile picture will now appear on your home screen. Tap it to jump straight in and start chatting to them.
9. Add a widget to your lock screen
WhatsApp widget on stock Android
If your device is running Android 4.2-4.4 KitKat or a custom ROM that supports lock screen widgets, you can quickly and easily add a custom WhatsApp widget to your lock screen.
Unfortunately, Android 5.0 Lollipop killed lock screen widgets and replaced them with heads up notifications that also work on the lock screen.
On a KitKat device, go into Settings > Lock screen and tick the box for Custom widgets. Then, lock your device's screen and from the lock screen, swipe to the side until you see the '+' symbol. Tap that and select WhatsApp from the list.
If you unlock your device from the lock screen with the WhatsApp widget installed, the next time you unlock your lock screen, the WhatsApp widget will appear as the default. You can also unlock from a different lock screen to have another widget be the one you see when you unlock.
Older (and newer) versions of Android do not support lock screen widgets, although it is still possible with apps such as Notifidgets.
10. Change your WhatsApp background
This simple little trick allows you to change the default wallpaper in WhatsApp. It's purely an aesthetic feature, but it does make your conversations look a lot nicer.
- In WhatsApp, tap the options (three dots) button and tap Settings
- Tap Chats
- Tap Wallpaper
- Tap WhatsApp, to download the WhatsApp wallpaper pack, or Documents, to view your own images.
- Select an image and tap Set Wallpaper
11. How to change the font size
If your eyesight is less than perfect, you can change the size of the text to make it even bigger. Or perhaps you want to shrink it so you can see more of the conversation on one page. Either way, here's how.
- In WhatsApp, tap the options (three dots) button and tap Settings
- Tap Chats
- Tap Font Size
- Select your preferred font size
12. Hide the blue ticks
You can stop your contacts knowing if you have read their messages by hiding the blue ticks. It's easy to switch them off, just bear in mind that this will mean that you won't get see when contacts have read your messages either. They will remain switched on for group chats regardless.
- In WhatsApp, tap the options (three dots) button and tap Settings
- Tap Account
- Tap Privacy
- Untick the Read receipts box
13. Star messages to quickly view them later
If there's a particularly important message in one of your chats that you want to be able to refer back to easily at a later date, then just long press on it, then press the star icon at the top of the screen. When you want to view it again, you can now just tap the trio of dots at the top right of the WhatsApp window, and press on Starred messages.
14. Send private messages in bulk, BCC-style
Privacy on the internet is a hard thing to hold onto, but WhatsApp has a few features that let you do things on the down-low.
Want to send out a group message without everyone in the group seeing who else received that message, and then seeing every subsequent response to the message? That's what the Broadcast feature is for, and using it is simple:
- Tap the Options icon at the top right (three dots)
- Tap New broadcast
- Enter the names of all the contacts you want to send your private message to
- Tap Create, write your message, then send it
15. Use Google Now to send messages
This is a near hands-free way to send a message in WhatsApp. Assuming you have Google Now enabled (which you should) just say, "OK Google", and then, "send WhatsApp message to (insert name)". After that you just dictate the message you want to send and Google Now will do the rest.
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