WhatsApp, India’s most popular messaging app, has often brought fresh new features to stay relevant and useful. Today, it added another long-requested feature — the ability to permanently mute chats.
Available in the latest update of Android and iOS, users can now mute chats for eternity, instead of the earlier ‘1 year’ maximum limit. The other options continue to remain 8 hours and 1 week. The accompanying notifications can also be muted for the same duration. This will save texters from the annual hassle of muting a particular chat once again.
How to mute a chat permanently
On Android, the process is pretty straightforward. When on the main chats screen of WhatsApp, select any conversation with a long press. This can be done for groups as well as individuals. Once done, you will see a striked-out speaker icon. Click on it to select your desired duration and hit ok. You can also tick the checkbox on the bottom if you’d like to continue receiving notifications from that particular chat. To undo this, simply long-press and click on the speaker icon again.
On iOS, visit the group info section of a conversation and look for the 'Mute' option.
WhatsApp is also adding new features for businesses, taking another step towards becoming Facebook’s Super app for everything. Firstly, businesses will now be able to offer their product catalogue on the chat for consumers to check and purchase them directly through WhatsApp. Enquiries, payments and order tracking will all be possible through chat itself.
Secondly, Facebook also wants to get into the business of hosting and communications to take on the likes of Microsoft and Amazon in the future while integrating vertically. Lastly, Facebook also announced that Businesses on WhatsApp will eventually have to start paying for using its services. No timelines or rates were suggested.
