tech-knowledge

Tech tips: How to secretly read a WhatsApp message without letting the sender kno

Yes, it is a text-don't-call-dominated world. But there are times when you can neither text nor call but you also can't throw your phone away. During times like these, what you can do is read the WhatsApp message without letting the sender know so that you can take your time to get back to them, without them feeling that you have read and not replied to their messages. A simple way to do this is to simply turn off the read receipts or blue ticks, but this is a 2-way-street and you will not be able to guess if the other person has read your WhatsApp message or not.

Turning off read receipts or disabling blue ticks on WhatsApp is easy. To disable read receipts, go to WhatsApp. Accounts > Privacy> Turn off read receipts by swiping left.

However, if you are the curious sort and WANT to know who seen-zoned you, and delve into eternal misery, but also don't want others to know that you read their WhatsApp messages, you can follow this trick -- before opening a WhatsApp message, out your phone in Airplane mode and when you are done, it will be marked as unread even if you have turned off the Airplane mode

Another trick you can follow to show your presence less on WhatsApp is to turn off your last seen. Go to Settings > Click on Account > Select Privacy. You can tweak settings to disable last seen for your contacts or for no contacts at all.

You can also mark a WhatsApp message as "unread" for times when you see a message but don't read it so that you remember to read and reply to it later. To mark a message as unread, tap on a message and hold it, then select Mark as unread. Note that the sender will know that the message has been read but you will be reminded that you have not actually read it through a blue or green dot.

In related news, WhatsApp is working on a way to let users transfer their chat history from iOS to Android. Until now, chat histories could only migrate from an Android device to an Android and from iOS to iOS. WhatsApp is currently testing the feature and is yet to make it official. Google has also added a Data Restore Tool app to Play Store that, as the name suggests, allows users to hold on to content from their old devices while setting up their new devices. The Data Restore Tool allows users to transfer apps, photos, contacts through a cable or cloud backup while setting up a device. As of now, the app version on PlayStore is 1.0.382048734, which could reportedly allow users to copy their WhatsApp chats and history from an iPhone to an Android phone.