WhatsApp is, by its own merits, the instant messaging application best known and most important in the world. Its popularity is so great that it has even made its way into the smartphones of older people, and this has had a very positive impact in most cases, as they have discovered a new way to stay in touch with their loved ones, and to socialize.
Using it is very easy in fact the WhatsApp interface itself is designed, from its origins, so that anyone can enjoy it even if you have no prior knowledge. We just have to enter the application with a touch on it, choose the chat or contact we want to send messages and that’s it, no more. However, we must keep in mind that under that apparent simplicity are “hidden” a lot of functions that will offer us a whole world of possibilities if we are willing to explore them.
This is, in essence, the same thing that happens with Google, a search engine that is very easy to use, but as we told you at the time in this article has a great variety of “secret” functions that are very interesting, and that will be very useful for us. Following in the footsteps of that article, today I want to share with you ten tips that will help you use WhatsApp like a pro. As always, if you have any questions you can leave them in the comments and we will help you solve them.
1.-Group chats in WhatsApp: Keep order in your conversations
Let’s face it, WhatsApp groups can end up being a real ordeal. Surely you have found yourself on more than one occasion with cross conversations between several members which touch on different topics and which, in the end, degenerate into constant bombardments of messages that make the situation uncomfortable and even meaningless.
To manage this situation, and to make groups more bearable, the ideal is to try to limit the number of conversations and the maximum number of members per group Having a group of 10 people can be hard enough to manageso imagine what can happen in larger groups. I know that it is not always possible to reduce the number of members in a group, but we can use the citation of messages to keep some order.
You can also directly address one of the group members when you want to focus a conversation with them. Both options are very useful, and complement each other perfectly. To quote a message, just press and hold on it and choose the “reply” option. If you want to directly address a personto address a person directly, type ”@” without quotation marks and choose the name of the contact you want to address. You can also review the contents in which you have been mentioned, or quoted, by clicking on the ”@” icon.
2.enable two-step verification to improve security
The two-step verification systems represent an important improvement at the level of security, since they add a layer of protection to our WhatsApp account, and also to any other account we have. My personal experience with this type of verification system has been very positive overall, as I have not had any security issues since then.
Thanks to the activation of the two-step verification in WhatsApp we can prevent, for example, that someone accesses our account even if they have our SIM card. This is possible because an additional verification system is added, which makes any unauthorized access attempt run into two “walls”.
To activate the two-step verification we just have to log in WhatsApp and go to ”Settings > My Account > Two-step verification”. Follow the self-guided process and you’re done. It is very easy to use, and represents an important value, so you should give it a try.
3.-Beware of storage: Using WhatsApp “dirties” your smartphone
And you can do it in a big way, especially if you’re in a lot of those groups that are given to sending videos and stuff that are fun for them, but maybe not so much for you. In case you are a fan of “memes”, or videos of “doggies” and “crawlies”, it is also likely that you are in more than one of those groups that flood you with multimedia content on a daily basis.
These contents can have a huge impact on your smartphone storageand therefore it is advisable that you take action before you run into space problems. On more than one occasion I have come across cases of family members who have asked me for help because they did not understand how their new smartphone was already giving them the low space warning, if they had barely taken a few photos. WhatsApp was the culprit, or rather those groups and users who share content as if there was no tomorrow.
The most sensible thing to do to avoid problems is to disable the automatic downloading of multimedia content in WhatsApp. To do this we just have to go into WhatsApp, follow the route  “Settings > Storage and Data ” and disable the automatic file download options (photos, audio, video and documents). If we want to free up storage we can also go to  “Manage Storage”where we will see a measurement of the space occupied by the contents of different chats, and we can delete those that no longer interest us.
4.-Find out which members of the group have read your messages
This is another way to better manage group conversations, and can help us maintain a more realistic relationship with the different members of a group. It is easy to understand, and in fact it has surely happened to you on more than one occasion, you send an important message addressed to two or three people, so you don’t quote them all, and you get no response. You think that maybe one of those people did not read it because the blue tick does not appear, But is that really the case?
WhatsApp includes a function that allows us to discover who has read our messages in a group, and it is very easy to use. Just tap on the message you sent and do a long press. It will open a context menu where the “info” option will appear. Select it and you will see who has read your message. If you are using an Android smartphone, you will have to press it and then tap on the three-dot menu at the top of the smartphone.
With this you will also be able to see when you received the message each person and assess whether something may have happened, or if their delay in answering may be normal. This is more useful than it seems, and therefore seems to me one of the most useful functions of all that WhatsApp integrates.
5.-Create custom sounds for your contacts
Another of the most useful and most interesting features offered by WhatsApp. With it we can create specific sounds for specific contacts, which can be used for will allow us to know if that message we have just received is from our partner or our best friendor if it is from a less relevant contact, without having to look at the screen.
To activate this feature we just have to go to the profile of the contact, within WhatsApp, whose notification sound we want to customize. Once inside, we choose the option “Wallpaper and Sound” if you use iOS or  “Notifications > Customize notifications” if you are using an Android smartphone. There we can choose the ringtone we want to sound when we receive a message from that contact.
In my case, this function has helped me to reduce distractions as much as possible without having to silence my smartphone in case something important happens. I have a very soft sound for contacts in general, and different sounds for those people I care about the most.
6.-Do WhatsApp groups bother you? Let there be silence
The same thing always happens. When we enter a WhatsApp group most of the time we see it as something unnecessary, and in the end we end up staying for pure commitment, but we do not want that group to bother us with notifications. If you find yourself in this situation, the best you can do is mute notifications, and permanently.
To do this you have to enter the group profile you want to silence, play the “Mute” option and choose how long you want the silence to last. You can also do this for contacts that you find annoying but that, for one reason or another, you cannot block directly (family members, for example).
If you use an Android smartphone, do a long press on the group chat or contact and tap the mute icon that will appear at the top right of the screen. You can also choose whether or not you want to continue receiving notifications from this group or contact. Remember that this process process can be reversed without any problem.
7.-From your WhatsApp to your PC in seconds, without cables
One of the most curious things, and with which I have had to deal the most, has been with the doubts that many WhatsApp users have when it comes to passing photos and files from that application to their PC. The truth is that, in the end, there are many options and many ways of being able to directly move things from WhatsApp to PC, and without complications, but in this article I want to focus on the simplest and most effective ones.
If you want to move an image, a video or any file directly from a WhatsApp chat to your PC one of the most efficient ways, for simplicity and speed, is to send it to you by email. It’s very easy, if you use iOS you just have to do a long press on the content, a contextual menu will open where we will choose the option “Share”, and we will have two arrows, the one on the left allows us to forward it to contacts, and the one on the left, which is straight, gives us the possibility to send the content to other applications, and also by e-mail.
If we choose the straight arrow, we will be able to send it to us to our e-mail address. Another way to send large amounts of photos and videos from WhatsApp to PC without having to connect the smartphone is to upload them to a service like WeTransfer, for example, using the option to create a link, and then use that link on PC to download the content. If you have WhatsApp activated on your PC, things are even easier and faster. In case you use an Android terminal, when you do the long press you have to go to the three points (top right of the screen) and choose “Share”.
8.-Give a touch of emphasis to your answers by changing the font
Yes, we already know that capital letters are a good choice for this task, but there are cases where they can end up falling short. If you want to give more emphasis to a response or a comment, you can do this by by giving them a special formatting. There are many options, but below here are some of the most useful ones:
- Write in bold type: enter a * at the beginning and end of the message you want to send.
- Strikethrough text:Â you can do this by placing ~ before and at the end of the text.
- Use italics: is very easy, just use _ at the beginning and at the end of the message.
- Monospace font: you can use it with ` ` at the beginning and at the end of the text.
Remember that you can use all these options in combination in a single text. So, for example, if you want to send a curved and bold message you have to write them simultaneously at the beginning and at the end of the text, but in the correct order. Here is an example for you to understand:
- Correct: _*Hello_*.
- Incorrect: _*Hello__.
9.-Export those chats you don’t want to lose, but don’t want to carry on your phone either
WhatsApp can become a source of very deep conversations, and may not always be advisable to carry them on our smartphone. It is also possible that we have to face a new stage, sentimental or work, and that a good part of the chats we had saved should no longer be on our mobile device, but at the same time we do not want to lose them.
On the other hand, there are also situations in which we may need to share an entire chat to clarify misunderstandings, or to be able to solve problems or very special situations. In such cases, the ideal is to export directly the chat, or chats, that we want to share keep outside the smartphoneor that we can help us overcome these problems.
When exporting a chat, we can send all its content, both text and multimedia elements, to a contact or another device using, for example, email. Thus, thanks to this feature we can easily export chats, with all its contents, to our PC, for example. If we use iOS we just have to go to “Settings > Chats > Export” and choose the chat we want to export. On Android we go to “Settings > Chats > Chat History” and choose “Export Chat”.
10.-Take advantage of temporary messages and photos, but with common sense
This type of content has an important value in terms of privacy and security, and will also help you keep certain chats clean. As the name suggests, both options allow you to create WhatsApp messages and photos that will will only be available for a certain period of time. After that time, they will disappear automatically without you having to do anything.
Thus, for example, you can send a photo that will only be available for viewing once, and messages that will disappear after a period of time of between 24 hours and 90 days. However, keep in mind that even if they disappear, they will still it is always possible to take screenshots and exports the chat to another device, where they will not disappear, so don’t do anything foolish.
To use this feature you just have to enter the profile of the chat you want and activate “Temporary Messages”. If you want to send a picture that will be deleted when viewed once, just choose the photo you want to send and mark the circle with the “1”. You can also activate it when you take a photo to send it on WhatsApp.