Overview
- The feature began rolling out to some beta testers this week and appeared in Android beta build 2.26.39.11 and an iOS TestFlight build reported by WABetaInfo.
- Restricted Chat confines a restricted conversation to the account holder’s primary phone so the chat will not appear on linked devices that share the same WhatsApp account.
- Users must enable Restricted Chat separately in each individual chat and the setting currently works only for one‑to‑one conversations, not groups.
- When enabled, WhatsApp stops media from that chat auto‑saving to device galleries, blocks exporting of the conversation, and disables Meta AI features inside the chat.
- WhatsApp says end‑to‑end encryption remains in place and the new option is meant as an extra layer to prevent access by unofficial clients or AI tools that use linked devices, but the company has not given a timeline for a wider or stable release.