WhatsApp is planning to change the way muting works on chats for users who want to take a break from certain group chats.
The feature, which is believed to be called ‘Vacation Mode’, will let you indefinitely hide muted chats without having to delete them.
That could prove useful for archived chats. At the moment, even if a chat is archived, it’ll reappear when a new message is received. Once the new Vacation Mode is enabled, the chat will remain hidden.
The existence of the new feature was spotted by WABetaInfo, which keeps a close eye on the developments of the world’s most popular messaging app.
The site says that the on/off function for Vacation Mode will be available in Settings.
It also says the feature is under development and so it’s not known when it will actually roll out to users.
It appears to be based on an Android feature called Silent Mode which lets you stop the number notifications appearing next to an apps icon badge.
Last month, WhatsApp removed support for some older phones with its most recent update.
And it plans to stop support for all iPhones running iOS 7 by February 1, 2020. This means anyone who owns an iPhone 4 or earlier will have to buy a new phone.
Anyone who owns iPhones produced after this will have to update their device if they want to use Whatsapp.