How To Keep Your Whatsapp Chat Private And Safe

By Godwin Gabla Last updated Apr 11, 2020

Whatsapp is arguably the world largest instant messaging application with millions of people across the globe using the app every day since its inception about some 8 years ago.

With Whatsapp becoming part of our everyday lives, it has become paramount to many people, the need to keep their chats private and safe at all times.

There are times you have visitors around and you forget to take your phone with you while you’re stepping out. You step out and realise that you’ve left your phone with the visitor and that they could go through your chats and see something unpleasant or some top secret.

This doesn’t have to happen to anyone.

In this article, we shall look at practical ways of ensuring that your Whatsapp chats are kept private and secure at all times.

Manage Your Whatsapp Images And Videos

One of the main ways of ensuring that your Whatsapp chats are safe and secure is for you to manage your Whatsapp images and videos such as your Whatsapp images do not appear in your gallery instantly.

There are two ways to do this. We shall look at both ways shortly.

For iPhone Users

Go to your Iphone’s privacy settings
Click on ‘photos’
Click to ‘uncheck’ the Whatsapp button.

This way, images from Whatsapp will not be directly displayed in your gallery when opened.

For Android Users

For you to achieve a positive result with this method as an android user, you must, first of all, have a file explorer installed on your phone.

Open your file explorer
Go to WhatsApp
Locate the folders named ‘Images’ and ‘Videos’
Create a file named ‘No Media’ in each of the locations listed above.
Your phone should skip all images from your Whatsapp chats and refuse to display them directly in your albums.

Locking Your Whatsapp Chats

More than anything else, this is the best way to ensure that your Whatsapp chats are secure and private.

Even though Whatsapp does not have an inbuilt system for locking your chats and the app itself, there are other apps you can use to lock your Whatsapp chats.

You can read about some of those here: The Best Apps For Locking Softwares On Your Android Phone.

Avoid Using Whatsapp Web/ Always sign out after use

The website version of the Whatsapp instant messenger may sound like a replacement for anyone who is hoping to use their PC to chat on Whatsapp.

However, information available to us indicates that the Whatsapp web portal is one of the most vulnerable components of the application.

With Whatsapp web, you need an active Whatsapp account on a mobile phone. During the registration process for Whatsapp Web, you’ll be required to scan a code from your smartphone.

And any other time you wish to login on Whatsapp web, the only passport you need is for your phone to be connected to the internet and for you to open Whatsapp on your mobile device.

Meaning, Whatsapp web is a duplication of Whatsapp application itself.

So anyone who has access to your browser can read your chats while you are chatting live on your phone and this is not good for security and privacy reasons.

So, to prevent this, you need to avoid using Whatsapp web and download the PC application for Whatsapp, in case you want to use it on your laptop.

Conclusion

Whatsapp is a very helpful instant messaging app which I believe almost everyone with a smartphone uses today. To prevent yourself from being exposed to intrusions and safety threats, you should use the method suggested above.

If you think there are other ways of achieving this goal, different from what is written in this article, kindly let us know in the comment box. We would love to hear from you.