You may have noticed that after recent WhatsApp updates, messages no longer immediately appear on screen. Instead, they now slide into your chat conversation with a smooth animation. This looks modern and makes the app more dynamic, but not everyone likes this change.
WhatsApp understands that all those movements on your screen can also be distracting. You could previously disable animated stickers and emojis, and now there’s also an option to disable the animations of regular chat messages. We explain how you can adjust the animations in WhatsApp.
Animations in WhatsApp conversations
Since the recent updates to WhatsApp, the speech bubbles in your conversations show a subtle animation effect when sending and receiving messages. Instead of appearing immediately, the balloons now fade in smoothly with a slight scaling movement.
For many users this feels nice and modern, but if you type a lot of messages in a row or simply prefer a quiet, static interface, the constant scrolling can be annoying. Fortunately, Meta has built in the option to manage these effects right in the app settings. This way you can easily disable the animations for WhatsApp conversations.
Disable message animations in WhatsApp
Do you want to go back to the familiar, static speech bubbles? Then follow these simple steps to turn off the animation:
- Open WhatsApp on your iPhone or Android
- Tap the tab at the bottom right of the menu bar You (your profile page/settings).
- Choose the option from the menu Chats.
- Tap Animations.
- Put the switch back Chat messages out.
Tip: In this same menu you can also immediately disable the animations for other media, such as animated stickers, GIFs or animated emojis, for an even calmer chat experience.
Once you flip the switch, all incoming and outgoing speech bubbles will appear again in the classic way, without any additional effects. If you want to change it later, you can turn the feature back on using the same steps.