Many WhatsApp users experience the clutter of being in too many groups, with most of them being inactive after they have served their purpose. A new report from WABetaInfo claims that the app is apparently working on an expiration timer for groups, letting you avoid having to leave and delete a group manually.
Expiring groups, as you can tell from the name, have a set shelf life that can be determined using a timer. With the timer, users can set a group to last a single day, a week, or even a custom date, along with the ability to remove an expiration date if they change their minds.
WABetaInfo says that a group expiration date only affects the individual that enabled it and will not apply to other group participants. However, it is currently unclear if the entire group will self-destruct for everyone if an admin sets an expiration date.
This sort of feature would be incredibly useful for keeping your WhatsApp uncluttered by groups that were only used temporarily for specific events and purposes. Of course, all users can still set a timer for disappearing messages if all they want is privacy instead of using expiring groups.
The feature is currently being tested on iOS for now and is still under development, so it is not even available to be previewed by beta testers yet. There is no firm timeline on when expiration timers for groups will come out, but it will likely take months before we hear anything official from WhatsApp regarding it.
Other features that are in the works include a new split-view feature for tablets that would let each side be operated separately. Additionally, WhatsApp is in the middle of developing a tool to let you mute calls from unknown numbers in order to prevent spam calls.
(Source: WABetaInfo)
