Whatsapp is an essential application that we cannot live
without in this age of technology, it has literally replaced the generic
messaging application of our mobile phones. As all of you might know,
Whatsapp recently got acquired by Facebook for a massive $19 billion,
and since then there has been a sea of updates and tweaks to the way our
favorite messaging app works.
This article mentions some of the tricks and tips that one can use to make the most out of Whatsapp.
1.
Hiding Whatsapp Last Seen
The concept of last seen has always been something to cherish for
some and for others it has always been a tool to create problems for
themselves. To make it easy for the users, Whatsapp brought the concept
of choosing whether you want to share your last seen or not. To take the
advantage of this feature, you need to go to the
options and then select
settings.
In settings, you need to select
account and then in account you need to tap on
privacy.

In privacy, you will see the option of Last Seen. Once you click
on it, you’ll be greeted with 3 options asking you to mark one amongst ‘
Everyone,
My contacts,
Nobody’.
Here selecting ‘Everyone’ will make your last seen visible to everyone,
whereas selecting ‘My contacts’ will make your last seen visible only
to the people in your contact list. Tapping on ‘Nobody’ hides your last
seen from everyone on Whatsapp. The catch here is that if you don’t
share your last seen, even you wouldn’t be able to see anyone else’s
last seen.
2.
Using Whatsapp Without A SIM in the Device
Whatsapp can be used on practically any device that supports the
software, for those devices without a SIM card slot or maybe the devices
with a faulty SIM card slot, there is a way to use Whatsapp. You need
to insert a SIM card in another phone for this process. What one needs
to do is that one will need to install Whatsapp on the tablet or the
device on which we intends to install Whatsapp, and then start the SMS
verification process. When Whatsapp sends a text message to your SIM
card, you’ll need to read the code given in that message from your other
phone to the tablet or device in which you need to use Whatsapp, and
that is it, Whatsapp will work like a charm in your tablet or device.
3.
Changing Whatsapp Network Usage Settings
Ever wondered how much net does your Whatsapp use? Or maybe how much
of media was downloaded or uploaded? Then look no further and tap on
Settings ->Account and then finally tap on
Network Usage.

It will tell you everything from the number of messages sent to the
number of messages received and the data that has been used up. You’ll
also have the option to reset all the statistics if you feel like doing
it.
4. Hiding Whatsapp Status
As is the case with Last seen and profile pic, we can also make sure
of who all can see the status that we have posted on Whatsapp.

For this you’ll again need to go to
Options>Settings>Account>Privacy and tap on
Status. Finally, selecting one amongst everyone, my contacts and nobody will solve the purpose
5.
Changing Whatsapp Number
If you plan to change your primary contact number on which you wish
to use Whatsapp, then Whatsapp has got a really cool feature for you.
All you need to do is go to the
options and tap on
settings.

After tapping on settings, you need to go to
account and then
change number.
Whatsapp will ask you to enter both your old and new numbers to complete the process.

This process helps a person to migrate account info, groups and settings from one phone number to another.
6.
Hiding Whatsapp Profile Photo
Many people don’t feel safe while putting their pictures up as the
Whatsapp profile photo. Fear of stalkers or maybe fear of random people
checking out profile pictures can lead to the concern. Along with
introducing the option of hiding last seen, Whatsapp also introduced the
option to restrict the viewership of your profile photo.

As we did in the case of last seen, we’ll go to the Privacy option by going to
Options>Settings>Account>Privacy.
Once in privacy, you’ll need to click on Profile photo so as to look at
the privacy options that Whatsapp has for your profile photo. You can
again select from Everyone, My contacts and Nobody, to choose who can
view your profile photo.
7. Pay Your Friend’s Whatsapp Subscription Charges
Whatsapp charges for usage in some countries and has provided a free
extension to users in other countries. If you happen to be the one who
resides in a place where Whatsapp is paid or maybe if you feel the urge
to pay for your Whatsapp subscription, then what you should know is that
you can also pay for a friend of yours. When can it come handy? Imagine
a friend of yours giving you an excuse that he/she cannot use Whatsapp
because it is expensive. In that case what you can do is that you can go
on Whatsapp in your mobile phone and straight away pay for your
friend’s subscription.

Here is how it works,
go to Settings and tap on Contacts. You’ll see the option of
Pay for a friend, tap on that and choose the contact and also the extension period along with the mode of payment.
8. Managing Auto-download of Media
How many times have we seen that media in messages get automatically
downloaded to our devices? The amount of data that some people lose
because of these auto downloaded media is immense, and as we know, the
amount of data used is directly proportional to the sum of money that
one pays. So, we definitely need to manage when and which data should
get downloaded automatically.

9. Backup Whatsapp conversations
There are different ways to backup or save your conversations on Whatsapp. One of the ways is to manually go to
Options>Settings>Chat Settings
and then click on Backup conversations. This will create a backup of
conversations in your phone’s memory. This backup can be accessed if you
uninstall Whatsapp and try to re-install it.

Also, a way to save your conversations with someone is by emailing a
copy of conversation to yourself. This can be done by going to
Options>Settings>Chat Settings and then
email conversation. This will prompt you to select a conversation and then it will ask you to mail it to an email id.
10. Changing Whatsapp Wallpaper
Ever felt envious of your friends rocking fancy wallpapers on their
Whatsapp conversation screens? Those are called wallpapers, and can be
put up from
Settings>Chat Settings>Wallpaper.
When you finally tap on the option saying wallpaper, you’ll be asked to
select an image, and that image will be saved as your wallpaper for
conversations from then on.
11. Setting up Pop up Notification for Whatsapp
Whatsapp has this really cool feature of showing pop up notifications
of the messages that you receive on your mobile. For activating it,
you’ll need to go to Settings>Notifications and then you’ll need to
find Popup notification under Message Notifications. You’ll then be
asked to select when you would want to see a notification, never, only
when the screen is on/off or always. Select it according to your
convenience and see the magic of Whatsapp when it’ll straightway show
you messages on the phone’s screen.
12. Using Whatsapp on PC
Whatsapp started with a phone only model and continues to do so, but
recently it introduced something known as Whatsapp web. This is a
feature that allows users to mirror their Whatsapp conversations from
phones to PCs. This comes in handy when someone is working on a
PC/Laptop and does not want to reach to his/her phone for using Whatsapp
again and again. To use it, go to the options and press Whatsapp Web.
Then go to your PC’s browser and go to
web.whatsapp.com.
You’ll see a QR code on the screen of your computer, just scan the
QR code using the QR code scanner that will be turned on in your phone
once you press on Whatsapp web, and boom! enjoy all the whatsapp
conversations on your PC!
A catch here is that you’ll need an active web connection on your phone to access Whatsapp web on PC.
13.
Deleting Your Whatsapp Account
Just down the road if you feel like parting with your favorite
messaging app Whatsapp, what should you do? Uninstall it? No! Not at
all! Finish it properly, delete your account. For doing it, you again
need to go to
Settings ->Account but this time
you’ll need to tap on Delete my account. It will delete your account
from Whatsapp, erase your message memory and also delete you from all
your Whatsapp groups.
All you need to do is enter your phone number in it, and you’ll be good to go forward and delete your beloved Whatsapp account.
14. Whatsapp Contacts Shortcut
There are certain people with whom we always feel like being in
contact and then there are some with whom we need to share instant
information. For such purposes Whatsapp has a feature which helps us to
create a shortcut of our conversation on the home screen. For this, one
needs to look at the chats in Whatsapp, long press one of them and then
click on the option that says Add conversation shortcut. This will add
to the home screen a shortcut of the conversation with that contact.
Now, by just tapping on this shortcut, we can access our conversation
with the intended person
15. Check When Exactly A Whatsapp Message Was Read
Whatsapp introduced the feature that showed us blue ticks whenever
someone read our messages, but what if we want to know when the
particular message was read. For this, we need to long press the message
with a blue tick on it and then press the icon I (information) on the
top. This will show us the time at which our message with blue ticks was
read.
We hope this article helped you learn some new Whatsapp tricks. If you know a trick or two, other than what is already mentioned in the article, let us know in comments.