WhatsApp isn’t in many people’s good books at the moment, given the aggressive rollout of its new Facebook-friendly privacy policy, but it is working on features that could get it out of the doghouse.
As of right now, your WhatsApp chat history is tied to your phone number, but a new beta feature could finally enable users to migrate their conversations over to a new number if they decide to make a change.
The sleuths at WABetaInfo have spied the feature in testing for the WhatsApp iOS and Android apps. Screenshots show the possible update will also enable users to transfer their history to a different platform; if they decide to move between the two major mobile operating systems.
The site has spotted a Transfer Chats To Android option, which will be available when people link a new Android phone to their WhatsApp account. The report also says the feature will also move across all of the videos, images and documents associated with the account.
Currently, even if you’ve backed everything up to iCloud or Google Drive, you’re still out of luck if you want to move to from the best Android phones to the best iPhone and take your chats with you.
The ability to bring the chats to a different phone number could also be a massive boost for some, although the need to change numbers has lessened these days. Right now if you switch to a different number WhatsApp will start everything afresh and you won’t be able to carry any of the chats with you.
WABetaInfo says “the process to change your phone number will be automatically launched before starting to migrate your chat history.”
There’s currently no release date for the feature, which remains under development, but we’ll keep you posted. This might not be enough for those who’re sworn off the app due to the new privacy policy, but it’s a welcome addition for the platform agnostic out there.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
