Everything You Need to Use WhatsApp Like a Pro

WhatsApp launched in 2009 and quickly became one of the most-popular messaging apps in existence—it’s now up to 1.5 billion monthly users from over 180 countries, with 60 billion messages sent every day. WhatsApp is free and allows you to sidestep international calling rates by making audio and video calls over Wi-Fi or data. For ease-of-use and security, it’s hard to beat. If you’re new to the app, here’s a few things to keep in mind.

To get started, you can download WhatsApp from the Apple store, the Google Play store, or right from the WhatsApp website. There’s a desktop version, too, similar to iMessage, if you want all your chats synced on multiple devices.

If you give WhatsApp permission, it will automatically import all your phone contacts and handily tell you whether or not they’re also using the app.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger share some features—no surprise there, since Facebook bought the app for $19 billion in 2014. There are a couple useful differences, though: You don’t need a Facebook account to use it, just a phone number. Helpfully, if you have friends switching SIM cards (and numbers) as they move between countries, WhatsApp will still keep all your messages in one thread.

As in Messenger, WhatsApp will tell you when a contact was last seen on the app. It goes a little further with the read receipts, though, which are gradated so that you can tell exactly what’s going on with your message: One gray mark means it’s successfully left your phone and is on the WhatsApp server. Two gray checkmarks mean it’s been delivered to everyone in the thread. Two blue check marks means it’s read. In groups, you can swipe left on your message to see who’s read it.

Instead of giving you the anxiety-inducing three dots when someone else is typing, an italic “typing….” will appear up by their name instead. This is particularly useful in group chats, when multiple people might be going at once.

There are a couple quirks to be aware of. Unless you go in and turn the setting off, WhatsApp will automatically download all media—photos, videos—to your phone library, including the stuff that other people send to you and the groups you’re in. That can eat up storage limits fast, and can also result in other people’s selfies cropping up in your photo library. To turn this off, go to Settings > Chats, and then unselect Save to Camera Roll.

You should also pay attention to whether you’re using your WiFi or data to download messages. Video and photo messages can use higher amounts of data, so you might want to wait until you’re on a wireless connection. Under Settings > Data and Storage Usage, you can toggle back and forth between Wi-Fi and data.

The biggest thing WhatsApp has going for it is its privacy policy—all messages are sent using end-to-end encryption—meaning that only the sender and recipient can read the messages. If you feel like verifying it, you can go into your chat with another user, click their name, and then under “Contact Info” you’ll see an “Encryption tab.” This will give you a unique QR code and 60-digit number that only you and your contact have in common. So whether you’re planning a surprise party with 20 people, or talking to your best friend in Mongolia, no one else will know what you’re saying.