WhatsApp Restricted Chat locks a conversation to your primary phone

WhatsApp is building a per-chat setting that keeps a conversation on a single phone. The setting, called Restricted Chat, sits in the Android beta distributed through Google Play as version 2.26.36.5, and it stops the app from syncing a chosen conversation to linked devices. Switch it on and the chat stays on the primary mobile device, out of reach of WhatsApp Web and any secondary phone signed in to the same account.

WhatsApp Restricted Chat (Source: WABetaInfo)

This closes a specific hole. A linked device is a browser session or a second phone paired to an account. Some people pair their accounts with modified web clients that can read their conversations, and some of those tools hand the messages to AI agents that process them while the other people in the chat carry on unaware. A restricted chat does not sync to the link, so a client at the other end has nothing to read.

The three older protections stay

Restricted Chat is an upgrade of Advanced Chat Privacy, the optional per-chat layer WhatsApp released last year, and it carries that feature’s controls forward. Media in the chat is not saved automatically to the device gallery. Other participants cannot export the full conversation.

Messages in the chat cannot be handed to Meta AI. Advanced Chat Privacy also posts a system message inside the chat whenever a participant changes the setting, so the people in the conversation see the privacy level move.

You cannot turn it on yet

The feature is under development and is not switched on for beta testers, so installing 2.26.36.5 will not make the option appear, according to WABetaInfo.

WhatsApp has not said when Restricted Chat will reach users. Until it does, a sensitive conversation on a WhatsApp account is readable on whatever devices that account has linked, including any the person on the other end paired once and left connected.