WhatsApp Vacation Mode is coming soon: Here's what it does and how you can use it

WhatsApp’s Vacation Mode feature has been in the rumours since past two years and there’s enough evidence to prove that the firm is constantly working on it. Quiet recently it was reported that ‘Vacation Mode’ is about to be rolled out to WhatsApp Android users soon. The firm has apparently renewed its efforts towards the development of this feature. Although its not clear when exactly will we see this coming out to end users, the biggest question here is that what exactly is Vacation Mode and what is its purpose?

The mode might help users keep a permanent record of their chats while keeping it hidden from the main chatting list. At present, WhatsApp pushes the archived chats to the bottom. However, whenever a new message arrives in the archived chat, it pops back on the top. This defeats the purpose of archiving the chat in the first place. Vacation Mode seeks to change by keeping the archived chats hidden.

As mentioned by WABeta info website, once the feature rolls out, it will have a dedicated section that will be present on the top of the chat window. From that section, the users will be able to see their archived chats along with a Notification button. This notification button will enable users to customise the section as per their requirements.

Also read: WhatsApp’s latest update fixes a big problem with archived chats

For now, the notifications section has two toggle buttons. While the first button -- Notify new Messages -- enables users to see when they get a new message in their archived chats. Disabling this button will hide archived chats completely. The other button called ‘Auto Hide Inactive Chats’ will archive a chat automatically if there is no activity in a chat for six months. 

WhatsApp might not get a better chance to bring its ‘Vacation Mode’ to users around the globe since most of us have started working from home and the instant chat usage has spiked up. With more alerts and notifications, it will only make sense to roll out this feature.