It’s more crucial than ever to protect your privacy in this era of instant messaging, but how should you go about doing so? With end-to-end encryption, no one except the intended receiver can access your messages, and with ephemeral messaging, you never have to worry about your messages getting into the wrong hands. Among the greatest encrypted messaging services, WhatsApp allows users to send and receive photos and videos that can only be seen once. Now, a new beta version of WhatsApp indicates that sending view-once messages would also be an upcoming feature.

WhatsApp has many options for sending temporary material, including as status updates, chat messages that vanish after being read, and one-time view photographs and videos. If you don’t want a message to persist after the receiver has read it, you’ll need to remove it manually using the Delete for everyone option. If you depend on the function that deletes messages after 24 hours, you’ll have to wait that long.

There was evidence of a view-once text messaging feature in development when testing WhatsApp version 2.22.25.20 for Android. The green send button will have a little lock symbol next to it when sending a view-once message. Seeing a message again after it has expired requires the sender to be contacted and a request to resend the message made. WhatsApp’s standard restrictions for view-once material (no screenshots, forwarding, or copying), applied to messages.

The view-once feature is only a deterrent, though, as a determined intruder could still steal screenshots of your ephemeral files and messages using a different device. Texts that only need to be seen once should still be beneficial even if they don’t provide 100% accuracy.

This functionality is anticipated in a future version, albeit its exact release date is unclear at this time. When it becomes available, you may transmit photos, videos, and messages that the receiver can only see once.