WhatsApp groups may soon get ‘expiration date’, to clean up old data after that

Making a WhatsApp group is one of the first things that people do nowadays when planning a group activity but that WhatsApp group only lasts till everyone has shared the images or the activity is complete. Many such WhatsApp groups remain at the bottom of our chat list unattended but they do eat up a significant amount of space. To take care of this problem, WhatsApp is working on a new feature called “Expiring groups”. As the name suggests, the WhatsApp feature will allow users to set an expiration date for their groups. This means no more ever lasting unattended WhatsApp groups at the bottom of our chat lists.

According to a report by WABetaInfo, references to the new feature have been found in the WhatsApp beta update rolled out for Apple iPhone users. The report reveals that the feature will allow users to set an expiration date by visiting the group info. Users will be able to pick from numerous options for expiration date such as one day, one week, or a custom date. Users will also be able to remove a previously set expiration date. It is worth noting that the group will expire for the user only and not the entire group.

Once the set expiration date is reached, WhatsApp will show users a prompt to clean up the group. The feature will help users to declutter their WhatsApp chats and it will also help them to save space.

As mentioned earlier, the feature is currently under development and is not available to users as of now but it is expected that the messaging platform will roll out the new groups feature in the coming months.