Turn on chat lock on or off

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You can lock chats to add an extra layer of privacy to your chats. Locked chats will be hidden from your chats list in the Locked Chats folder.
To read or send messages in a locked chat, you must unlock your chats using device authentication, such as your phone passcode, Face ID, fingerprint, or with a secret code of your choice. When chats are locked, notification content and contact information are hidden. Notifications show as “WhatsApp: 1 new message.”
Note: Depending on what language you're using in WhatsApp, the feature name may appear differently as either Chat lock or Chat block.

Turn chat lock on or off

You can turn chat lock off or on for any chat, including group chats and muted chats. If you don’t have your device authentication set up yet, such as your phone passcode or fingerprint, you’ll be prompted to set it up before locking a chat.
To turn chat lock on or off:
  1. Swipe left or tap and hold the chat you want to lock or unlock.
  2. Tap
    more options
    > Lock Chat or Unlock chat.
Note:
  • You can’t save media from locked chats. To save media, you must turn chat lock off.
  • Calls from contacts in locked chats won’t be blocked.
  • If you backup and restore WhatsApp on a new phone, your locked chats will still be locked. To access your locked chats you must have device authentication set up.

Create a secret code

After turning chat lock on, you can lock your chats with a secret code, separate from your phone passcode.
  1. Tap Locked chats > Settings > Secret code.
  2. Enter your code and tap Next.
  3. Enter your code again to confirm.
  4. Tap Done.
To turn off your secret code, tap Locked chats > Settings > Secret code > Turn off > Continue.

View your Locked Chats folder

You can view your locked chats by scrolling down on your chat list and tapping Locked Chats.
You can also choose to hide your Locked Chats folder so that it doesn’t appear in your chat list by going to your Locked Chats folder > Settings and tap Hide Locked Chats on.
To view your locked chats:
  1. Go to the Chats tab and scroll down to tap Locked Chats.
    • If you’ve hidden your Locked Chats folder, enter your secret code into the Search bar and tap Locked Chats.
  2. Confirm your Face ID.
  3. Tap the chat to view or send a message.

Unlock and clear all chats

You can unlock and clear every chat you have locked, in the case that you've hidden your Locked Chats folder from your chat list and have forgotten your secret code to access it.
If you unlock and clear all locked chats, all locked chats will be unlocked on your chat list. This means that the chat history in your locked chats, including the messages and media, will be cleared. If you have a secret code, that will also be cleared.
Note: You can restore an unlocked and cleared chat if your latest backup occurred prior to clearing the chat. Please be aware that you’ll lose any chats that occurred after the latest backup.
To clear all chats:
  1. Go to your WhatsApp Settings.
  2. Tap Privacy > Chat Lock > Unlock and clear locked chats.
Note: You can restore cleared chats if your most recent backup happened before you cleared the chats. However, you can only restore messages and media sent before the backup.

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