Hide and password-protect your private conversations with Secret Code for Chat Lock in WhatsApp

WhatsApp has launched a new way to help protect your sensitive conversations, extending the capabilities of Chat Lock which rolled out earlier in the year.

The newly added feature makes it possible to both password-protect and hide those chats you don't want anyone else to see. These hidden conversations can only be accessed by those who know of their existence and who have the necessary code to make them visible.

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WhatsApp describes Secret Code as "an additional way to protect those chats and make them harder to find if someone has access to your phone or you share a phone with someone else".

The fact that chats are hidden from sight helps to eliminate the temptation that might arise in a curious third-party who spotted a password-protected conversation.

In the launch announcement for the new privacy feature the company goes on to say:

With a secret code you'll now be able to set a unique password different from what you use to unlock your phone to give your locked chats an extra layer of privacy. You'll have the option to hide the Locked Chats folder from your chatlist so that they can only be discovered by typing your secret code in the search bar. If that doesn't suit your needs, you can still choose to have them appear in your chatlist. Whenever there’s a new chat which you want to lock, you can now long press to lock it rather than visiting the chat’s settings.

The roll-out it underway right now, but WhatsApp says that it will be a few months before it is available globally.