WhatsApp israpidly ticking off feature additionsfrom its list focused on catching up topopular rivalslike Telegram and Discord. Now, Meta’s developers are finally thinking of original improvements for WhatsApp. A new feature spotted in development suggests Meta is working on alternate profiles for an account, so that you don’t need to show everyone your private side.
WhatsApp has several profile elements which you can hide from others, including a cherry-picked list of your own contacts. You canhide your last seen statuson the app so nobody bothers you for leaving them on read, hide ephemeral status updates from nosy friends, and define who can see your profile picture in WhatsApp.
Just like for status updates, WhatsApp gives you four options to define thevisibility of your profile picture—Everyone,My contacts,Nobody, andMy contacts except. The last option allows you to select people in your contacts who shouldn’t be able to see the image. People denied access to your profile image by this setting are instead treated to the sight of a generic gray silhouette of a person. However, this can be an unsuitable arrangement in many situations.
WhatsApp recently updated the beta channel to version 2.23.24.4 on Android, and it appears Meta engineers are working on a feature calledAlternate profile, which could be the fix we want. The sleuths atWABetaInfonote it is available right underneath the privacy settings for your profile picture. You can use the new option to set up a secondary profile picture and account name. A brief description underneath explains WhatsApp will show this alternate profile to anyone who isn’t allowed to see your primary profile picture and name.
The feature could be the ideal compromise between showing everyone your friendly profile picture and not revealing anything at all. This way, you won’t have to worry about the world seeing your account name and image every time you change them. It’s a great setting for a work phone too, where you’re able to have your professional side for the world to see, and a more approachable, semiformal side visible only to contacts with whom you’ve built a relationship.
The feature is still in the development phase, so it isn’t even available to beta testers presently. However, it comes hot on the heels of worldwide support foraccount switching in WhatsApp, which serves as a perfect workaround until alternate profiles are usable. Account switching allows using more than one WhatsApp account from the same smartphone, eliminating the need for hacks like app cloning or having a secondary smartphone just for the other WhatsApp account.
