KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 7 — WhatsApp is rolling out new privacy features with default disappearing messages and multiple durations for those messages.

Users can now set all new individual chats to start vanishing messages after the selected duration of 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days.

This is not the first privacy feature that they’ve added in the past few years. 

Seven-day disappearing messages was introduced back in November of 2020, ‘view once’ photos and videos were introduced in August 2021, and multiple duration disappearing messages was also tested that same month.

However, this is the first time that users can set every new chat message to disappear by default.

How to activate default disappearing messages on WhatsApp

On iPhone and Android, go to Account, Privacy, and tap on ‘Default message timer’. You should see a page where you can select between 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days for the timer.

Currently, this feature doesn’t show up for everyone. I don’t have it on my phone yet, despite being on the latest version of the app. Only some of the people I asked were able to find the feature, which tells me that it’s slowly rolling out on a user-by-user basis.

If you’re unsure how disappearing messages works, here are the frequently asked questions that might clarify the functionality for you.