Almost every WhatsApp user will find orphaned groups at the bottom of their chat overview with names such as “Christmas Party 2017”, “Surprise Party for Peter” or “Tina’s Hen Party”. Once created to organize a large event with many participants, these chat groups usually end up eking out a desolate existence on the smartphones of the group members after the event has ended. This only changes when the initiator of the virtual exchange takes pity on deleting the group or all participants have left the chat of their own accord.
Multiple expiration date options
In the beta version, WhatsApp offers a choice of three time period options. You can choose a day or week life cycle. Alternatively, set a self-defined date for the end of your group chat. However, when the time you set arrives, the WhatsApp group will not disappear on its own. Instead, you just get a notification that it’s now time to manually delete the chat. If necessary, the expiry date can also be removed later.
How useful this feature is in practice remains to be seen. After all, a mere reminder of a chat to be deleted does not relieve users of the effort to overcome their inner weakness and actually make a clean sweep. According to the report, the feature is currently still being finalized. It is not known when it will be included in the official version of WhatsApp.
