A guide to Whatsapp (part 1)

Hello! It's Carolina again, today I'm going to be talking about whatsapp and some of the basic things you need to know about it.

As you can see, the title says part 1, that's because whatsapp has too many features to cover in just one article, and I don't want to write the bible here! So today we will go over: how to change your profile picture, the 'about' on your profile, how to create groups, how to find contacts and archived chats.

By the way, we have already talked about this here; to install whatsapp you just have to go to the play store or the app store and download it there.

How do I choose and change my profile picture?

My grandmother usually sets whatever picture I send her as her profile pic. And this has happened more than once, (there was this one time when she had a picture of me with a bikini for an entire week!). So, in hopes of saving your younger acquaintances from this embarrassment, I beg you to follow these steps to get yourselves a nice, decent profile picture.

• Go to Whatsapp and press 'Settings', which will be in the bottom right corner of your screen.

• Then tap on your profile picture.

• Now tap on 'Edit', tap again.

• Select 'take photo' if you want to take a picture at that moment and 'choose photo' to choose a photo from your album.

• Choose or take your photo, adjust it and tap on 'choose'.

How do I change my 'about'?

• Go to settings and tap on your name and profile pic.

• There, tap on 'ABOUT'.

• You will be able to choose from some of Whatsapp's predetermined phrases. IF none of them convince you, tap 'ABOUT', 'CURRENTLY SET TO' and write whatever you want.

• Then tap 'save'.

As long as it is appropriate, you won't have any problems there. You can write motivational quotes, use emoticons or just write the first thing that comes to your mind.

Tadaaa! That would be it for the profile customisation part. Now, let's move onto the more practical features of Whatsapp.

How do I create a new chat? How do I find my contacts?

Whatsapp's main purpose is chatting, so first I'm going to explain how to chat privately with someone, and then how to create a group chat.

• To begin a conversation with someone, you should tap on the pencil with the small square on your top right corner of your screen. It will appear in the 'Chats' section.

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• Once there, tap 'Search' and write their name.

• If that contact has Whatsapp, it will come up. Tap on their name and your chat will pop up!

• If they don't have Whatsapp, it won't come up.

How do I create a group?

When you create a new group, you will become the administrator, that gives you permission to add/ kick people out, change the group's name and description, etc.

Follow these simple steps to create one:

• Go to chats and tap 'New group' (sorry for the spanish pics):

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• Choose the participants.

• Name the group chat and set a profile picture for it if you want.

• Tap 'create' and you would be finished!

How do I archive and unarchive chats?

Lastly, we're going to talk about archived chats. These are the chats that you can 'hide' and whose notifications you won't receive. To read their messages, you will have to look for their chat in you 'archived folder', in the 'chats' section.

To archive a chat:

• Choose the chat that you want to archive, and swipe left.

To unarchive a chat:

• Go to your 'archived folder' and swipe the chat you want to the left, just like when you archived it.

Be careful, sometimes when we scroll down on our chats, we accidentally archive chats, and that has brought me many problems; people thinking I was ignoring them or had blocked them on Whatsapp.

Don't make my mistakes and check your archived folder every once in a while, just in case.

And that would be it! I know today's post was shorter, but I feel like it makes it easier to read and understand. I hope you guys liked it and that you found it useful. I'll solve any doubts or queries in the comments.

See you!

Carolina Grandía Soler - 25/09/22