Six must-know WhatsApp tricks

WhatsApp is the world’s most popular instant messaging app. Here are a few WhatsApp tricks to make your life easier.

How to create bold, italicised or strikethrough text

Simply put (*) at the beginning and end of the desired word or sentence and you can make it bold. The same goes for italics, only with

(_) on either side of the text. To strike through text, add (~) to the beginning and end of the text.

If your phone is compatible you can try the easy way: highlight the desired text, tap “more” and choose from bold, italicize or strikethrough.

Save some data

To save data, disable the app’s ability to auto-download media on mobile data. This is done via Settings > Data and storage usage > When using mobile data. You can check or uncheck the downloading of photos, audio, videos and documents via mobile data.

This way, you can choose what you want to download by tapping on the file.

If your WhatsApp calls are eating all your data, simply go to Settings > Data and storage usage > Low data usage and tick the box to lower the amount of data used in a call.

Add a contact to your home screen

Open the desired contact or group, tap the three-dot menu in the top right corner. Go to More > Add shortcut. You then simply tap Add automatically or hold the icon to place it on your home screen.

See who read your group message

Highlight your message; tap the three-dot menu, then Info. Here you will see who has and has not viewed the message, as well as when it was delivered to their device.

Use WhatsApp on your PC

Visit web.whatsapp.com on your computer. The website will display a QR code. On your phone, tap the three-dot menu in the top right corner, then select WhatsApp Web to launch the QR code reader. Now, scan the website’s QR code via your phone’s QR code reader and that is that.