WhatsApp is finally bringing you relief from spam callers

WhatsApp is the world’s most popular mobile messaging service, and the company has been on a tear lately when it comes to adding new features. Now, the Meta-owned platform has added two more features worth knowing about.

For one, we’ve now got a toggle to automatically silence calls from unknown contacts. The toggle, found via settings > privacy > calls, means you no longer have to be bothered by anyone you don’t know.

WhatsApp noted that you’ll still see silenced calls from unknown numbers in the calls tab and in notifications, but your phone obviously won’t ring as a result.

The company does, however, caution in an FAQ that you won’t be able to silence someone’s calls in the future if you choose to message or call them in turn. So the block option will still come in handy for these situations.

This feature obviously won’t protect you from traditional voice calls made by unknown contacts. But it’s worth noting that many OEM phone apps let you outright block calls and texts from unknown numbers. This is in addition to spam filtering capabilities and Pixel-exclusive call screening functionality in Google’s Phone app. So the combo of this new feature plus existing dialer features should help cut down on spam and other unwanted calls.

WhatsApp has also brought a Privacy Checkup feature to the platform. This is a one-stop shop for established privacy features, such as choosing who can contact you, controlling your personal info (e.g. who can see your profile photo and last seen status), and viewing account protection options. This feature is available as a banner alert when you visit settings > privacy.

Both features are now available in the stable version of WhatsApp, so you should have it already. Otherwise, you might need to manually update if you’re like me and have disabled automatic app updates.