So, 2016 has arrived and if the blue ticks in WhatsApp are still a nightmare for you then there is a good news that I can share on the very first day of the year. I will be keeping this post short and simple.
For those who are unaware of the feature, WhatsApp has introduced a new feature that confirms if the user have read the message with a blue double tick on the messages making the life of common people more complicated. The name of the feature is “Read receipts”. Although there is an option to disable this feature but then you will not be able to see the read receipts of other people.
The workaround for this is to place a message widget for WhatsApp in the home screen. I am leaving some screenshots here so that you can identify the widget.
The widget lists all the unread messages there as shown above. You might want to make the widget longer so that messages can be read easily. Now if your friend sends you some attachments like images or videos, then you cannot view those multimedia messages through this widget. To view these without opening WhatsApp, the media auto-download feature should be enabled before hand. Then go to to gallery and search for the WhatsApp folder. Also you can access the files from a file manager. The folder named WhatsApp contains all the media in separate folders. Just sort by date and you will get the latest media. And there it is, the cherry on the cake. Congratulations! You can now access everything without even opening WhatsApp.
Assumptions:
- You are on Android. The android version must be 4.2 up. I am not sure if they have included this widget in lower versions.
- If the media sent is too large then wait till it downloads and then check the file manager.
- V card cannot be retrieved from this method.
- If there are many attachments from different users then the sender of those attachments cannot be identified.
That’s it. Wishing you a very very Happy New Year!
