WhatsApp launches “vacation mode” to silence conversations

WhatsApp has implemented the new features called “vacation mode”, a setting that allows users to archive conversations to silence them, and that keeps them that way even if new messages arrive.

Vacation mode, which first appeared in 2018 as a variant of Android’s silent mode, is still in development, as shown in version 2.20.199.8 of the beta of the application for Google’s operating system, which is included in the WABetainfo portal.

This feature will arrive in a future update, and what it does is that an archived conversation – silenced – remains in this state even if it receives new notifications. In a previous version, the arrival of new messages would automatically unarchive the chat, that is, it would return it to the main list of conversations.

In the new beta update there have been changes to the interface of the messaging application. Specifically, a new section dedicated to archived conversations, where it is indicated that the user can move their chats there to keep them muted.

“Chats with new messages will not return to the main chat list,” the app explains. To check if someone has written, the user must enter the conversations they have archived.

At the beginning of September, an update to the vacation mode allowed viewing a space dedicated to archived chats, from where you could access the ‘Notifications’ option and choose the behavior of the app when new messages arrive in those chats: notify them in the home screen or hide chats older than six months.

The function, as the aforementioned portal points out, is also being developed for iOS, and given the changes in the interface, it is expected that it will soon be available to users.

The application already allows you to silence the notifications of the chats without archiving them, for established periods of time: eight hours, a week, always. This is a setting that must be activated manually for each conversation.

Source: dpa