WhatsApp Rolling out a Self DM Feature to All Users

Meta Platform’s social messaging platform, WhatsApp is gradually rolling out a new update that lets its users message themselves. The update was first noticed by WABetaInfo and is now available in the latest version of WhatsApp for iOS (version 2.22.23.74) and WhatsApp for Android (version 2.22.23.77).

To see if you have the self-DM feature, hit the floating action button for a new WhatsApp message in the lower right-hand corner to start a new chat. From the contact list, you will be able to see your contact appear on top of the list with a caption saying “Message yourself.”

The messages sent to this particular chat (your number) will be visible across your linked devices and they are always end-to-end encrypted (the encryption key is generated by using all your linked devices).

The feature may not seem very useful at first, but messaging yourself could also be a great way to transfer small files, documents, media, and links between multiple linked devices (I do this the whole time, although I created a group with only me in it and it’s where I share media I need).

So texting yourself is arguably one of the most convenient ways to jot down ideas before you forget them or save web URLs you wish to revisit.

Signal, Slack, and Messenger already have a similar feature and allow you to send DMs to yourself and sync them across devices.