WhatsApp has become the standard form of communication for many of us in this modern, digital age. Millions of smartphone users around the world now opt for WhatsApp over regular text messaging, as it is a quick and easy way of communicating with other users without cost.
The app boasts over 2bn users every month, according to market and consumer data company Statista – this is more than twice the amount of Facebook Messenger users. Since its launch, WhatsApp has been updated to allow a whole host of functions, one of which is its archive feature, which allows users to hide a conversation without removing it from your device.
Here, we tell you everything you need to know about archiving a chat on WhatsApp.
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The archive function allows users to remove conversations from their ‘Chats’ screen without permanently deleting them. In other words, archiving a chat simply hides it rather than removing it altogether.
You can archive a chat on WhatsApp in just a couple of easy steps. For iPhone and iPad users, simply locate the chat you wish to archive, and swipe on it from right to left.
This will present you with two options: ‘More’, represented by three dots, and ‘Archive’, represented by an archive box. For Android users, simply tap and hold on the chat you wish to archive and you will see an archive icon near the top of the screen – it is represented by a down arrow inside a square box.
You can archive any chat, including group conversations with several participants. You can only archive the entire chat, though, rather than individual messages within a chat.
But what happens when you archive a chat? Essentially, the chat will disappear from the list of conversations in the ‘Chats’ menu, but it will not be gone entirely.
You can still access your archived chats whenever you like. To do this, simply tap ‘Archived’ at the top of your chat list on iPhone or iPad, while Android users can tap the archive icon at the top of the chat list – this is the icon of a down arrow inside a square box.
Once a chat is archived, you will still receive messages from other participants in the conversation. If you do get a message in an archived chat, you will receive a message notification and the chat will return to the main ‘Chats’ menu.
Other participants in an archived chat will still be able to see if you are online – unless the feature is deactivated in your settings – but they will not know whether or not you have archived the conversation. If you no longer wish to receive messages from an archived chat, you may want to consider leaving the group to remove it entirely.
But if you have a change of heart and decide to unarchive a chat, that is easily done. iPhone and iPad users can simply locate the chat in the ‘Archived’ menu and swipe on the chat, bringing up an option to ‘Unarchive’.
Android users need to tap and hold the archived chat and tap ‘Unarchive’ near the top of the screen. This will return the chat to the standard ‘Chats’ menu.
WhatsApp also allows users to block a particular user from contacting you.
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