Whatsapp has introduced some new features to its Android version with the latest update. Just a few days earlier, Whatsapp reportedly fixed a bug in the Android beta version of the app that was causing erroneous display of the date and time of sent messages. Now it has introduced a new feature that will enable users to download deleted media on their Android devices again.
Earlier, when users deleted media files stored on the WhatsApp folder of their devices, they were no longer able to download those files again. But now those files can be re-downloaded, thanks to the latest update. In addition to this feature, the messaging service has also added a vCard indexing feature in the latest update with version number v2.18.111
As per a report by WABetaInfo, Whatsapp now allows download of deleted media files like images, videos, GIFs, and documents from Whatsapp’s servers. The report also claimed that this new feature was introduced for Android users between version 2.18.106 and 2.18.110. However, as per some sources, Whatsapp is currently not allowing media files that are too old to be downloaded again. Instead, the users are being requested to resend those files again to the recipients.
The introduction of this new feature also means that Whatsapp servers will now keep a copy of all media files of the users. Earlier, Whatsapp stored sent media files for a period of 30 days and after the user downloaded them on their smartphone, the backup copy was deleted from the servers. It is to be noted, however, that in order to re-download the media files that have been deleted, the users need to have the message through which the media file was received by the user.
This announcement comes after the recent data abuse by Facebook that was reported by Cambridge Analytica. Whatsapp, however, has already announced that it has already enabled end-to-end encryption for all the users and it does not allow any third party to read or listen to the messages or calls.
