WhatsApp Text Messages Get View-Once Option in Testing

WhatsApp has been testing view-once photos and videos for years, but text has always been exempt from that treatment. A new feature in development would close that gap, letting users send a text message that disappears after the recipient reads it once.

The mechanic is straightforward. After typing in the chat bar, users can long-press the Send button to select a “Send as view once” option. Once opened, the message cannot be copied, forwarded, or shared, and WhatsApp will block screenshots and screen recordings to prevent any form of preservation.

The feature is being built for both individual chats and groups, with one deliberate exclusion: channels. WhatsApp has decided ephemeral messages are not appropriate there, which tracks with how channels function more like broadcast feeds than private conversations. The Android version is also in development alongside the iPhone build.

A Pattern of Ephemeral Features

This is the second disappearing-message mechanic WhatsApp has surfaced in beta recently. A few weeks ago, a separate feature appeared that starts a countdown on disappearing messages only after they have been read, rather than from the moment they are sent. That one has not rolled out broadly yet either, so WhatsApp appears to be building a small suite of timed-privacy tools rather than shipping them one at a time.

WABetaInfo points out that some users have already been working around the text limitation by typing their message onto an image and sending it as view-once media. That workaround is clunky enough that a native option will likely see real use. The audience for this probably overlaps with the same users who spend time customizing privacy-forward setups on iPhone, where controlling what persists on a device has become a recurring theme across both Apple and third-party apps.

No release date has been given for either feature.