How to make your WhatsApp voice messages disappear after they’ve been heard

People in the 21st century sure do love their burn notices. No, they’re not literally torching paper after reading its supposedly covert contents — they’re setting a timer for a clip they took on apps like Snapchat. Disappearing messages have become entrenched in the tool belt of any good communications app these days.

Far from an exception, WhatsApp went further by introducing View Once messages for text, photos, and videos in 2021. Now, the feature is expanding to voice messages. Here’s how you can make them disappear after they’ve been heard.

View Once vs. disappearing messages

To be clear, View Once is unlike disappearing messages where all the messages you send in a conversation are automatically deleted after a period of time that you’ve set — anywhere from 24 hours to 90 days. You also have the option to have every message you send to anyone on WhatsApp disappear after a time via a default setting. View Once instead deletes a designated piece of media after the recipient opens the chat and sees it, the first and only time.

View Once voice messages

What’s new, as announced by the Meta-owned company (via The Verge), is the fact that you can set a voice message you’ve recorded to be viewed or, in this case, listened to just once. You’ll be able to share a View Once voice message with any individual on the app (read: no group chats). When a user receives a View Once voice message, they’ll be able to play it in an enclosed player environment as many times as they’d like. Once they exit that environment, they lose access to the clip forever.

View Once messages aren’t entirely private: while in the listening environment, recipients may also choose to externally record the message or report it to WhatsApp, where a moderator may also listen to the message.

How to send a View Once voice message on WhatsApp

1. Open a conversation with an individual.
2. Tap and hold on the microphone icon in the bottom-right corner. While still holding, swipe up to lock down voice recording mode.
3. Tap on the stylized ‘1’ button on the right side of the recording interface. If the icon has been filled in, you’ll be sending a View Once voice message.
4. Tap the Send button once you’ve finished recording your message.

How to listen to a View Once voice message on WhatsApp

When you receive any View Once media, you’ll see a message line from the sender with the View Once ‘1’ icon in place of any actual content. You’ll have 14 days from the time the message hits your device to listen to the message before it gets deleted. Tap on the message to open the enclosed viewing environment.

From here, you’ll be able to listen to a View Once voice message through the usual playback interface (replete with speed controls). You’ll also be able to report the message by tapping on the three-dot icon in the top-right corner and selecting Report. If you use WhatsApp on Android, you may also open up your OS’s screen recorder app to capture the message.

What you can’t do is take a screenshot from within the enclosed environment (not that the visuals matter here, but you get the point). You also won’t be able to share or forward the message. WhatsApp account backups and transfers will include unlistened View Once messages, but the same rules as above apply if you’ve recently moved your data to a new device.