If you have been receiving frequent messages on a group or personal chat, a new WhatsApp feature will help avoid them. The instant messaging platform has come with a new feature that allows users to mute groups or a personal chat forever. Till now, you were able to mute someone for 8 hours, one day or one year. But the platform has now added a new option called the Mute Always. The new feature is available on WhatsApp’s Android and iOS apps, and the web version as well. 

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The new mute option essentially replaces the one year option with ‘always’. The other two options remain to be 8 hours and 1 week. WhatsApp chats muted for one year are unmuted automatically after the deadline is over. 

To use the feature, you need to go to any chat or group, click on the three dots at the top right and open ‘Mute Notifications’ option. You will be asked the duration of the mute to be enabled. Select from 8 hours, 1 day or always.  The feature will be available for all in the coming days.  

Another feature that can soon make its way to the platform is ‘Vacation Mode’. The feature was reportedly scraped but recently appeared, and is expected to roll out soon. Vacation Mode on WhatsApp keeps archived chats permanently hidden. At present, archived chats show up on top whenever a new message is sent. But with Vacation Mode, archived chats will remain hidden and not pop up on top. This feature makes more sense for archived chats to actually work like they’re supposed to. 

Meanwhile, WhatsApp recently issued a statement following concerns around app’s privacy.  

“WhatsApp protects your messages with end-to-end encryption so that only you and the person you’re communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between can access it, not even WhatsApp,” said the app.