Mark Zuckerberg announces Keep in Chat on WhatsApp

Mark Zuckerberg announced a new product on WhatsApp called “Keep in Chat” that lets people in a chat which has disappearing messages save the messages they need most.

With Disappearing Messages conversations do not have to stick around forever – just like in person discussions. While this extra layer of privacy protects messages from falling into the wrong hands, sometimes there’s that occasional voice note or key piece of information you want to keep.

WhatsApp is introducing “Keep in Chat,” so you can hang on to texts you need for later, with a special superpower for the sender. We believe if you’ve sent the message, it’s your choice whether others in the chat can keep it for later.

To make this work, the sender will be notified when someone keeps a message, and the sender will  have the ability to veto the decision. If you’ve decided your message can’t be kept by others, your decision is final, no one else can keep it and the message will be deleted when the timer expires. This way you have the final say on how messages you send are protected.

Messages you’ve saved on your WhatsApp will be noted with a bookmark icon and you can see these messages, organized by chat, in the Kept Messages folder.

We hope people enjoy this new update and the flexibility to keep the messages they need. This will roll out globally over the next few weeks.