WhatsApp's scheduled messages show recipients no sign they were held, per WaBetaInfo

The case The Next Web builds around is a manager who writes at eleven at night and has the note arrive at nine the next morning ^[17]. The site calls scheduling a compliance tool as much as a convenience ^[18]. It then says the feature moves the timestamp and leaves the working hours where they were: the note was still written at eleven ^[19].

Teams that adopt it will tell themselves that a held message is a compliant one. Whether that holds depends on what a given rule tests. Portugal's labour code restricts contacting staff outside working hours, except in emergencies, with inspectorate fines attached ^[12]. A rule worded around contact points at arrival, and a morning arrival is inside working hours. A rule aimed at a manager's late work points at the writing. The reports do not say which test a regulator would apply to a held message.

The feature is built for the sender, and the recipient is the person who gets a message with no label on it ^[8]. Europe accounts for around 500 million of WhatsApp's roughly two billion users ^[14], or 25 percent ^[16]. Telegram has offered scheduling since 2019 ^[6].

There is still no EU-wide rule ^[13]. France made ignoring after-hours email a right in 2017 for firms with more than 50 staff ^[10]. Italy legislated the same year, Spain in 2018 and Slovakia in 2024 ^[11]. Parliament called for a right-to-disconnect directive in 2021, and it remains in drafting ^[13].

The behavior described here comes from Android beta 2.26.8.11 ^[5], and Engadget expects more accounts to get it in the coming weeks ^[20]. The recipient-side details are WaBetaInfo's findings from a test build, as relayed by The Next Web, and could change before a general release.

For Monday, we'd sort each country where your staff work on two questions: is there a statute or only company policy, and does the rule test when a message arrives or when the sender worked. Where a statute tests arrival, scheduled sends probably fit, and local counsel can confirm. Where a statute tests the sender's hours, a held message does not help. Where only company policy applies, you pick the test, and it should be written down. In our view the sender-side test is the safer default: the time a manager writes is the time they worked. The tradeoff is that it removes the use the feature is pitched for, the eleven o'clock note that lands at nine.