clean groups every so often

WhatsApp groups can be a black hole for group storage, if its members tend to forward photos or videos. WhatsApp is working on a solution: groups with an expiration date.

We found out about this news from WaBetaInfo, which has found this hidden news in version 23.5.0.71 beta for iPhone. With this expiration date, we will be reminded to clean a group after a day, a week or a specific date.

Groups with expiration date

Currently, WhatsApp allows us to activate the functionality of temporary messages in any chat or group. With it, the messages that are sent expire after a certain time (a day, a week or three months), being removed from the chat and, incidentally, freeing up some space on the mobile.

While temporary messages are activated for all chat participants, the application seems to be working on something similar, but only for us. It receives the name of Expiring Groups or groups that expire and should help us free up space on the mobile if we are part of many groups.

We will find the setting to activate the expiration in a group within the options of the group itself, and WhatsApp will give us three options for this expiration: in one day, in a week or on a specific date.

And what will happen when the group “expires”? According to the text itself, we will be reminded to clean the groups that have expired. It’s still not entirely clear how exactly this is going to work. One way this might work is for old messages to be deleted locally, while other people in the same group can keep them if they want (as opposed to existing temporary messages).

Vía | WaBetaInfo

Imagen | MidJourney