WhatsApp Beta Suggests Work on Vacation Mode Has Restarted, Media Guidelines Feature Tipped

WhatsApp has reportedly restarted work on Vacation Mode – a feature that looks to offer options to users to mute archived chat even in the event of receiving new messages. Currently, WhatsApp offers users the ability to archive chats, but when a new message arrives, a notification does pop up for users. Vacation Mode looks to disable this ability and work on this feature was reported a year ago, but WhatsApp seem to have abandoned it later. However, the latest Android beta update suggests that WhatsApp has restarted work on this new Vacation Mode.

WhatsApp v2.20.199.8 beta for Android has been released, and features tracker WABetaInfo has dug into the code to discover new features. The Vacation Mode was spotted once again under development after it was abandoned earlier. This also means that users on the latest beta will not be able to see the feature yet. As mentioned, this feature allows users to keep their chats in archive when a new message arrives.

WhatsApp is working on introducing new parameters
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo

This new reincarnated version spotted in the latest beta comes with a dedicated section for archived chats that allows choosing of different parameters. Once this new feature is live, archived chats will be moved to the top of your chats list and tapping on it will bring up the dedicated ‘Archived Chats' section that has a new button called ‘Notifications'. Within notifications, there are two new options that have been added – Notify New Messages and Auto-hide inactive chats. These options allow users to choose the behaviour of archived chats, when new messages arrive. For instance, if you decide to disable ‘Notify New Messages', then the archived chats continue to stay in archive even when new messages arrive. The second ‘Auto-hide inactive chats' option is reportedly an extension of Vacation Mode, and if enabled, a chat older than six months is automatically archived.

The latest WhatsApp v2.20.199.8 beta for Android also suggests that WhatsApp is working on implementing media guidelines when you add interactive annotations on images, videos and GIFs. This will help users perfectly align text, emojis and stickers when sending an image in a chat, group or status update. Again, these guidelines aren't available yet because this feature is under development.

In 2020, will WhatsApp get the killer feature that every Indian is waiting for? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.