WhatsApp has just submitted a new update through the Google Play Beta Program, bringing the version up to 2.20.206.2.
What’s new in this update? Discover all details below!
| Common questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Name of the feature? | Vacation Mode |
| Status? | Under development |
| Availability? | In a future build |
| When? | Unknown release date |
| I’ve the same version but I don’t see this news, why? | It’s not available yet, but you can see here a preview of the feature, for a future build |
| Previous tracks? | 2.20.199.8 Android beta |
| News about iOS? | WhatsApp is also working on this feature for iOS. |
The feature called “Vacation Mode” has a long story. WhatsApp started to develop it under the name “Ignore Archived Chats”, then they abandoned the development.
In the WhatsApp beta for Android 2.20.199.8 update, WhatsApp was finally starting to implement the feature again, including several improvements.
What’s the vacation mode? It’s a new feature available in a future update that allows to keep in the archive your chats when new message arrive. Actually when you receive a message from an archived chat, WhatsApp automatically unarchives it. If you decide to use the vacation mode in the future update, chats won’t be automatically unarchived anymore.
Note: in the past updates WhatsApp wanted to prevent muted archived chats to be automatically unarchived when new messages arrived, but now it’s not needed that the archived chat is muted.
With the Vacation mode, we can see some changes about the UI. In fact “Archived Chats” will be moved at the top of your chat list:
In this update, WhatsApp is working to introduce the feature with a new banner:
We don’t know when WhatsApp is going to release the feature, but considering that they are implementing the presentation banner, it shouldn’t take so long. Stay tuned for new announcements!
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