WhatsApp started working on ‘vacation mode’, a feature that ignores new messages on archived chats back in 2019. We’ve seen multiple reports regarding the feature getting discontinued and resurrected over the past year. The company even tested renaming archive chats to ‘read later’ earlier this year in January. And today, we can report that WhatsApp has started rolling out the feature to let you mute archived chats forever. In this article, we will explain how it works and detail the steps to enable the “Keep chats Archived” feature in WhatsApp
WhatsApp has started testing a new toggle that now lets users keep archived chats in the archive section when they receive a new message. For the uninitiated, WhatsApp currently pushes the chats out of the archive section for new messages even if you’ve muted the contact. This is particularly annoying as it defeats the purpose of archiving a chat. Going forward, this will no longer be the case when you receive a new notification for an archived contact.
We spotted the change in WhatsApp beta 2.21.10.9 for Android on OnePlus 7T running OxygenOS 11 based on Android 11. Follow the steps below to enable this new feature:
With that being said, do keep in mind that this is a gradual rollout and you might not necessarily have this feature even if you’re on the same build. Given that WhatsApp has started testing the feature with beta users, it shouldn’t take long until it rolls out to all users.
