Facebook has announced another new feature for its Messenger and Instagram DM apps and is called ‘Vanish Mode’. With a self explanatory name, when turned ON, the messages you send or receive will vanish after you or the one on the receiving end, has read it.
In Vanish Mode, Messenger and Instagram users can send text chats, emoji, pictures, GIFs, voice messages and stickers, which will disappear after they’ve been seen and users leave the chat, Facebook explained while announcing the feature.
The feature is copied from the Snapchat app that has had it as a default since its launch. However, the feature won’t be default in messenger and Instagram and one will have to opt-in to enable the Vanish Mode feature.
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Once in Vanish Mode, the screen goes dark to show that the change has been implemented. To exit Vanish Mode, you tap on the “Turn Off Vanish Mode” button at the top of the screen.
Facebook also says that the other user will be notified if you take a screenshot of the chat or a photo or anything else that is sent in Vanish Mode, same as Snapchat does.
One will also have to enable the cross-messaging feature between Messenger and Instagram which the company announced around 2 months back. Vanish Mode also comes as a part of the merger between the two chat apps including other features like changing chat themes, reacting to a message with any emoji, replying to a specific message in a chat, etc that weren’t a part of Instagram earlier.
The company recently revealed a similar feature for WhatsApp which is called Disappearing Messages. The basic concept of the feature is similar to vanish mode, except that the Disappearing messages in WhatsApp would stay for a week and not disappear as soon as you read and close the chat.
As per Facebook, Vanish Mode is launching starting today on Messenger in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Peru and Bangladesh, and on Instagram in Canada, Argentina, Chile, Peru and a few other countries. The feature will be made live on Instagram soon. It will soon roll out to other countries across both platforms,