Find out if a "screenshot" of the conversation was taken in Messenger

 Find out if a "screenshot" of the conversation was taken in Messenger

Since the popularity of screen capture in smartphones, this method has become an ideal solution for gossip among friends or used as a means of preserving evidence, as some see, and it has even come to the point where many people keep screenshots on their phones much more than selfies they take with their camera!So many prefer to stay away from using chat applications to discuss sensitive topics.

In any case, recent versions of mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS allow applications to sense when a user takes a "screen shot", and as a result, chat applications began to exploit this ability to protect against privacy violations. Examples abound, perhaps the most prominent of which is the WhatsApp application, which made it possible to prevent taking a screenshot when activating the View Once feature. And if you are using Messenger, you can know if a "screenshot" of the conversation was taken by the other party or not, so let me tell you how.

For a long time, some have been relying on third-party apps to get a notification if the other party takes a screenshot in Messenger conversations. Most of these apps fail sometimes, and some are not practical at all. However, in recent versions of the app, the "screenshot notifications" feature has been integrated, which displays a message stating that the person you're talking to has saved a Screenshot of the conversation.By default, this feature will not work in regular conversations that you have on the application, but only in secret conversations, provided that the temporary messages feature is activated in them.

In general, secret conversations are no different from normal ones, where you can still exchange text messages and pictures normally, but they give privacy a high priority; for example, messages will disappear when the recipient reads them or after a specified time after reading them, and if the recipient is detected taking a screenshot, it will appear as a Notice in chat. Unfortunately, this feature only works on the Messenger mobile app, i.e. you cannot get a screenshot notification when using Messenger from a browser on a computer.

Therefore, in the event that you have to engage in a discussion involving confidential or sensitive information through the Messenger application, it is best in this case to activate the secret conversations feature. It is true that the other party will not be prevented from taking a "screenshot" of the conversation, as is the case in WhatsApp, but at least you will be aware of this action to take the action you see fit.

All you have to do is open the Messenger application on your Android phone or iPhone, then click on the conversation, then click on the account name from the top bar or on the (ℹ) sign located in the far right of the upper corner of the screen, as shown in the attached image above. Then, at the bottom, tap Go to secret conversation. Alternatively, you can start a secret conversation with more than one party by clicking on the Create a message icon in the upper right corner of the main screen of the Messenger application. A list of all your friends will appear. Select those you want to include in the conversation, then activate the lock icon () at the top. 

After activating the secret conversation, activate the "Disappearing Messages" feature through the screen that appears after clicking on the name of the other party's account at the top of the secret conversation. After that, you can specify how long you want the messages to remain visible before disappearing automatically, ranging from 5 seconds to a full day. As such, the "Screenshot notifications" feature will automatically be activated, which aims to display a notification within the conversation when the other party takes a screenshot of the messages.

As it turns out, when the recipient takes a screenshot of the secret chat, you'll see the notification at the bottom of the chat confirming it. True, it was possible for the "Meta" company to permanently prohibit the possibility of taking a screenshot of secret conversations, as is the case with WhatsApp or even in other applications such as Telegram or Signal, but for some reason I decided to allow taking a screenshot with only displaying a notification to all parties to the conversation that this happened.

In any case, this is the only official way to know if a screenshot of a conversation has been captured in Messenger, but it is important to note that no matter what method the app uses to avoid saving a screenshot during secret conversations, there are always side solutions that cannot be addressed. It's the same as the other party taking photos of his phone screen with another phone's camera or even recording the screen while the conversation is going on, and other methods that don't interfere with the ability to save a copy of the chat messages.