New function
WhatsApp wants to prevent the download of chats
Updated on April 8th, 2025 – 5:34 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
WhatsApp wants to make chats more confidential in the future. For this, the developers are experimenting with a new data protection function.
WhatsApp is currently testing a function with which messages can be better protected from saving and passing on. This is reported by the blog “Wabtailfo” and relies on a trial version of the messenger for Android. Accordingly, the so-called “extended chat-private sphere” users should give users more control over their own chats.
How does it work? In the future, users should decide for themselves whether media content such as photos and videos that they post in chats can be downloaded and saved on other cell phones. The export of chat courses from the app should also be prevented in the future.
The new option should be found in the chat information area according to “Wabtainfo”. In the future, users could then switch on or off individually for individual or group chats. Once activated, the settings then not only prevent the automatic storage of shared media such as photos or videos, but also the export of entire conversations. The goal: sensitive content should remain within the app.
However, individual messages could be forwarded despite activated download lock, it is said. Only the complete sharing of a chat should then no longer be possible.
The new setting is optional and can be deactivated again at any time. The changes to the privacy status of a chat is displayed with a note in order to inform everyone involved about the settings.
The new WhatsApp function for deactivating downloads fits the developers’ efforts to better protect its users. Last year, WhatsApp prevented the opportunity to take screen recordings from other profile pictures.
This was no longer possible under Android since April last year. A few months later, the screenshot lock was also published for iPhones. Years earlier, the service had already removed the function with which users were able to download and save the profile pictures of other users.
