WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging platforms in the world. And over the past few years, it has been regularly adding a lot of different features and functionalities to its app. Be it the addition of features like read-receipts, status updates, payments, or more recently the ability to lock the app using biometrics.
One distinguishing feature among the various provided in the app is WhatsApp Web. In a nutshell, WhatsApp Web is a quick and simple way for people to use WhatsApp on a computer. The functionalities available on the web version are comparatively less than the mobile version, with restricted permission access to some features.
So, if you prefer messaging on a computer than on your phone, or your work revolves around WhatsApp, and it requires you to always share content off the internet, WhatsApp Web is your friend.
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Best WhatsApp Web Tricks
To make it easy for you to use WhatsApp on the web, here are some tips that can be used to maximize your productivity while being efficient.
1. Use Multiple WhatsApp Accounts on the Same Computer
If you are one of those people who has more than one number linked to WhatsApp and wants to access them simultaneously, it is possible to do so on a computer using WhatsApp Web. Here’s how –
Considering you already have a WhatsApp account open in a tab of a browser, you can either open an ‘incognito mode’ on the same browser or open a new window in a different browser altogether. Whichever way you decide to go for, you can then open WhatsApp Web and scan the QR Code using your phone, and that’s it. Now you can view two WhatsApp accounts at the same time.
2. Search for Emojis using a Keyboard
While some might not be a fan of using emojis, a few prefer using it to make themselves feel more expressive to others. So for such people, to avoid the hassle of switching between keyboards to access various emojis, an easy way is to use pre-defined keyboard shortcuts.
To input emojis using a keyboard, you need to open the chat of the person you are trying to have a conversation with, and then in the input area, you need to enter a ‘colon’ (using the Shift + :/; key combination), followed by the name of the emoji. For instance, if you want to enter a heart, you can do so using this command- ‘:heart’. As soon as you enter the command, you will see a list of all the various heart emojis, which you can input directly with a click without having to go back and forth with different keyboards.
Also Read: 6 Chrome Extensions for Improving Your WhatsApp Web Experience
3. Use Keyboard Shortcuts
Just like you used keyboard shortcuts in a chat to access the emoji keyboard, you can use keyboard shortcuts throughout the web version of WhatsApp. Learning these can increase your efficiency and typing speed and will allow you to do things way faster.
Here are some keyboard shortcuts-
- Ctrl + N: to Start a New Chat
- Ctrl + E: to Archive a Chat
- Ctrl + Shift + M: to Mute a Chat
- Ctrl + Backspace: to Delete a Chat
- Ctrl + Shift + U: to Mark a Message as Unread
- Ctrl + Shift + ]: to Switch to the Next Chat
- Ctrl + Shift + [: to Switch to the Previous Chat
- Ctrl + Shift + N: to Create a New Group
- Ctrl + P: to View a Profile’s Status
Related: How to Silently Exit WhatsApp Groups
4. Change Audio Playback Speed or Volume
If you are one of those people who prefer voice messages over text messages for conversation, you must surely use this neat little trick. A lot of the time, the voice messages are either too soft on the audio or too slow with the playback speed. Unfortunately, WhatsApp doesn’t allow you to speed up the playback speed or the volume level on the web version.
As an alternative, you need to download a Chrome extension called Zapp. Zapp is free to download Chrome extension, that allows you to adjust the volume level and the audio playback speed.
Once downloaded, you will see an icon on the right-hand side below the address bar. Here, you can click on the upward or downward facing arrow keys to turn the volume up or down, respectively.
5. Read Messages Without Notifying Other People
This trick is probably one of the most used WhatsApp Web tricks ever. Mainly because most of us have been in a situation where we want to read the incoming message in a chat but do not want the other person to know that we have seen their message to avoid the need to reply.
Unfortunately, WhatsApp only has one way to stop this. By disabling the Read Receipts. But what about the times that we want to know who has seen our message? In such a situation, going around and changing the settings does not appear to be an ideal solution. So to get around this situation, here’s a cool way to read the incoming messages without letting other people know.
For this trick, you need to have a WhatsApp Web window open in one of the browser tabs in the background. Next, you need to open an app in the foreground. Any app would do, just that the window size should cover some part of the chat in the background, and the mouse pointer should be present on the foreground app. Upon receiving a message, you can see it, and the read receipts would not show on the other person’s conversation window. In layman’s terms, the double blue tick will not appear. Instead, the double grey tick will show up, which means that the message has been received but not read yet.
And that’s a wrap!
Those were some of the best WhatsApp Web tricks that you can leverage to get the most out of using WhatsApp Web. Do let us know in the comments section below if you find these tricks useful, and mention the ones that you use often.