By Adedapo Adesanya
Popular instant messaging service, WhatsApp, has started rolling out a feature that allows users to chat with themselves or save messages. Sending messages to one’s own account can be a way to keep a piece of information easily accessible, right next to other WhatsApp conversations.
Called Message Yourself, the feature lets users send notes, reminders and shopping lists to themselves on WhatsApp.
On Monday, the Meta-owned instant messaging app announced the rollout of the new self-messaging feature that will reach all its Android and iPhone users in the coming weeks.
Users will see their contact at the top of the contacts list on WhatsApp when they create a new chat. Tapping that contact will take them to the chat screen they can use to send messages to themselves.
Although the native feature to message oneself is new on WhatsApp, some users have already been using a workaround for some time. Users can already send messages to themselves using the app’s click to chat feature. Nonetheless, the new offering removes the additional steps that users need to self-chat using the wa.me URL.
Users can also pin their self-chat messages to the top of the conversation list if they don’t want to search for them in their widely polluted chats list.
Rival platform, Signal, already offers a feature called Note to Self that does much the same thing, though it is contained in the user’s contacts list rather than being available at the top.
Telegram also offers a similar feature called Saved Messages that lets users bookmark any important messages as well as save their notes and reminders that can be accessed in the future. Messages, once saved, can be accessed from the top of the chats screen. However, Telegram users initially need to access the feature by tapping the hamburger menu on Android or through the settings menu on iOS.
Aduragbemi Omiyale