WhatsApp is the most popular chatting app in the world because it has a ton of excellent features. However, it lacks many others. For instance, let us assume that some intrusive friends are trying to request your phone to make a phone call or communicate with someone. In the end, you will be surprised that they are inside WhatsApp reading your personal conversations, even if it is for pranking. Surely you will not be fine with this.
So, the obvious question that might pop into your head in such a situation is, “How do you manage to hide your personal conversations from the prying and curious eyes of your friends?” Unfortunately, WhatsApp does not have a definitive answer to this question, and for an unknown reason, it does not allow you to conceal any of your chats. But do not worry, there are some “roundabout ways”, or you can consider them indirect methods that may be useful in such a case to preserve your privacy.
In this article, we will show you how it is possible to hide personal WhatsApp conversations from within WhatsApp itself.
1- The first method: by archiving conversations
Archiving WhatsApp conversations is the only prevalent method most users rely on in order to hide their personal conversations. Fortunately, it is a feature already included in WhatsApp without the need for any third-party applications. Clearly, it’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing at all. By applying this feature, chats will store in a secure folder ‘archive’. The archived personal chats will not appear on the main interface of the app when you open it.
This trick is great for keeping your private messages safe and away from prying eyes, but remember it’s not perfect because it’s also easy to access in case your nosy friend tries to dig into your archive folder. Now let us show you how to hide personal conversations in the archive folder on WhatsApp.
First, Open WhatsApp then long-press on all the chats you want to hide. After that, tap on the small box icon that contains a little arrow pointing down — this is the archive icon — and this is almost everything. Finally, you will notice the disappearance of all your conversations from the main interface of the app. In order to locate them, scroll down until you reach the end of the chats where you can find the “Archived” box, or maybe you will get it at the top of the app interface.
2- The second method: by locking WhatsApp
In my personal opinion, this is the safest way to hide your WhatsApp chats. Creating a password lock for WhatsApp will help restrict any stranger from opening WhatsApp. Keep in mind the necessity to put a strange password different from the one you use to lock your phone since most of your friends and family might know the home screen password.
To lock WhatsApp with a password, open the application, then click on the three horizontal dots icon from the top left and choose Settings. After that, press on the Account option, do the two-step verification and click on Change ID. Next, enter 6 numbers and confirm the identification number again. Finally, tap on the Save tab.
Moreover, you can lock the application using your fingerprint. Just go to settings, privacy, then scroll the screen down until you reach “Lock using fingerprint” and activate the feature by moving the cursor in front of “fingerprint unlock”. Next, specify a period to lock WhatsApp, either right after you leave it, 30 seconds, or 1 minute after your last use.
