WHATSAPP users are being urged to activate an important new setting. It could help your account stay private - and you might not know it's even an option.

WhatsApp allows you to see whether your contacts are online and when they were last seen.

While turning off read receipts is a commonly used privacy setting - many people may not realise they can go one step further.

With the push of a button, you can turn off your 'last seen' setting - and it's easier than you may think.

How to turn off the 'last seen' feature

So how to do you turn off WhatsApp's last seen feature.

Open your app on mobile and then go into Settings > Account > Privacy.

Look for the 'last seen' option.

Three choices then appear: everyone, my contacts and nobody.

If you press 'nobody', not a single person will know whether you're on WhatsApp at any given time - and when you were last on it.

The Sun Online's tech and science team earlier reported how to send WhatsApp disappearing messages.

These are texts that automatically self-destruct after a certain period of time.

Open your app on mobile and then go into Settings > Account > Privacy.

Look for Disappearing Messages and then set the toggle to the On position.

Then choose a time period for messages to disappear – 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days.

A message will appear in the chat confirming that Disappearing Messages has been turned on.

To enable it on an existing chat, you need to archive and then unarchive it first.

You can also enable Disappearing Messages on specific chats by tapping into the individual settings of a WhatsApp contact.

The system isn't fool-proof, of course. If someone screenshots or records your chat, there's no way to remove that content from their phone using an official WhatsApp feature.

As always, the best way to keep embarrassing or regrettable content off the internet is to not post it in the first place.

But if you're particularly worried, using Disappearing Messages is a great system to use.

Remember: only texts sent after you activate Disappearing Messages will be deleted. It won't go back in time and scrub old missives for you.–The Sun