WhatsApp Restricted Chats: New Android Beta Privacy Feature

WhatsApp Restricted Chats settings on Android beta, showing a toggle that blocks media saving, exports, Meta AI and linked devices — The Restricted Chat screen in WhatsApp’s Android beta, which limits what people can do with messages in a conversation.

WhatsApp has started rolling out Restricted Chats to Android beta testers. The feature lets you lock down individual conversations beyond what end-to-end encryption already does. It targets a real gap: third-party tools and AI agents can read messages through linked devices, often without the user realizing it.

Why WhatsApp Built Restricted Chats

Help Net Security first covered the feature in September 2026. According to its report, some users connect their accounts to modified web clients that can read their conversations and pass them to AI systems without the other person’s consent.

Restricted Chats closes that route. Once it’s on, a conversation can’t be opened through WhatsApp Web, a secondary phone, or any other linked device.

What a Restricted Chat Blocks

You switch it on from the chat info screen, and it applies four limits to that one conversation:

No automatic media saving. Photos and videos from the chat stay out of the device gallery, so they don’t show up in your camera roll.
No chat exports. Nobody can download the message history for archiving or external processing.
No Meta AI. Meta AI features stop working inside the chat, which removes one way AI could analyze its content.
No linked devices. WhatsApp Web and companion devices can’t access the conversation.

Availability and Current Limits

The feature appears in Android beta version 2.26.39.11 through the Google Play Store. WABetaInfo says not every tester will see it right away, which points to a phased rollout, the usual approach for WhatsApp tests.

There is one notable limitation: Restricted Chats doesn’t work in group chats yet. That limits its value for teams and for the shared conversations common at work and in social circles.

WhatsApp hasn’t announced a date for a public release. Testers reported the feature was not yet enabled when it was first revealed in September. This new beta rollout suggests WhatsApp is still refining it, probably testing linked-device blocking and export controls across different devices and network conditions.

How It Compares to Other Messaging Apps

Signal and Telegram have their own privacy tools, but neither has been reported to offer this combination of per-chat limits behind a single switch. The feature also shows WhatsApp acknowledging that encryption alone doesn’t protect against everything, including compromised linked devices and unauthorized AI processing of your conversations.