Possible innocent reasons for this? Tbh, any reason would be welcomed because I actually can't think of any...

[AlwaysTimeToGoSomewhere]

With the exception that there have been messages he wouldn't want me to see and doesn't want a message to pop up when I'm with him that I might see.

I'm 47. My boyfriend is 59. I love him but I think it's fair to say he's not the sort of man that a much younger woman would be attracted to 🤷🏻‍♀️ He's also not the sort of man to give me reason to mistrust him. He's open with everyone about he feels about me etc. I'm not a secret etc etc.

Anyway, I noticed the other day that he had created an 'archived' folder on WhatsApp. I don't know why but it rang huge alarm bells. I've never archived a chat, I've only ever seen them mentioned on here in terms of being suspicious because it allows someone to receive a message without it being seen at the top of their message screen - the sort of thing you might be bothered about if you were doing something you shouldn't be.

He isn't protective about his phone at all and leaves it lying around.

I'm not proud of it but I looked.

There was an archived chat in there but there were no messages in it. Only the initial notification about the messages being encrypted.

The profile pic was of a woman who I doubt was older than 20. Certainly young looking if older than that. No make up, not a provocative photo in anyway, nothing special about her. Just a normal looking girl. First name only. It's just not what I expected to see.

Is there any way this can be innocent?

Honestly I think you either need to forget about it or just ask him, there isn’t really an alternative

I've got all my failed OLD chats in archive- it's a proper rogues gallery!
I can't be bothered to block them, it just seems extreme to me, so they just go into archive out of the way.

Thanks all.

I'm still not convinced. I can see that others have valid reasons for doing it but it's not something he does. There are no other chats archived and the content has been deleted.

But others seem to think thar in the absence of anything else, it means nothing. So I'll go with that. Thanks.

Hi OP @AlwaysTimeToGoSomewhere , I am with you on this one, in that I am not at all convinced. I happen to know that hiding WhatsApp chats in the archive folder is a very common occurrence for men (and women) who are cheating on their partners and for people who are paying for the services of sex workers.

It is exceptionally common, actually. But of course that is not to say that your DP has definitely got something to hide. I think if you look at the 'evidence' in the round:

1. only one archived chat
2. no chat log and messages to see between the two of them which suggest they have been deleted as otherwise the 'chat' does not stay there / would not be there in the first place
3. your gut instinct is telling you something is off, which is not evidence of course, but ought not to be ignored.

My suggestion would be to take another look when you get a moment and go to settings - see if he has switched 'on' the setting that means when someone messages him in a chat that is archived there will not be a notification and the chat will not move to the main WhatsApp 'inbox', because the default setting for this is 'off' so if it is on then you know that he has switched it on and it means that he has done so to avoid receiving notifications from any messages that are archived, whether for innocent reasons or whether for more malign reasons such as not wanting you to see her name / message pop up - that is for you to figure out.

The setting I am referring to can be found in:
settings > chats > keep chats archived

I hope you manage to either get to the bottom of things or find some peace. I would also ask him and watch for any discomfort in his body language etc, just how he reacts. But if I were you I would do that after I have looked at the settings.

Are you hoping he's cheating because you aren't happy in the relationship but don't seem to have the energy to leave?

I put my OLD chats in archive too! I have also archived exes and people I'm dating who message me when I don't want my children to see their names flash up on my phone. It does hide new messages from the screen.

I think my phone number was either leaked in a data breach or accidentally listed on some dodgy website because I occasionally get very cryptic WhatsApp messages from incredibly attractive looking Asian women. They go straight in my archive or I delete them (varies because I can’t always remember how to delete/archive). I’ve also accidentally archived chats in the past when I’ve been trying to mark them as “unread”. And this is as a fairly tech savvy 30 something year old. I can totally believe a 59 year old could be less tech savvy and could have accidentally archived something when trying to delete. I can also totally believe him receiving a message that was not intended for him.

My archived chats are empty of messages, I think because I archived them before getting a new phone and the messages weren’t saved in the transfer.

At this point I almost feel like you want him to be up to something dodgy

I have had spam chats that I've accidentally archived instead of deleted.
Is easy done

That's not true. I've got lots of archived chats, some are from family members that I am now estranged from and I don't want one of my kids to accidentally message while they are playing with my phone. One of said family members messaged me about a bereavement recently and I got no notification, the chat didn't move back into my unarchived chats and the only reason I even noticed was that a little '1' appeared at the top of my normal chats, above where they are listed. I never set it up to do that, I didn't even know you could.

So you could use archives to hide chats, but really I'm sure there are better ways? You have no evidence of anything really OP but I think what you need to do is ask him about it and see what he says.

I archive people I don't talk often too... It's too much scrolling otherwise. Or people who are weirdos/upsetting...

Not any more. They can now stay archived.

The encryption message only appears when you add a contact and disappears once messages have been exchanged. Not sure how they have a message chain with no messages exchanged but that's what seems to have happened here.
archiving does prevent notifications popping up. WhatsApp changed the settings a while back.

I have lots of archived chats, some of whom are attractive young men, all of whom are either spammers or a couple are where someone got the wrong number.

Sounds like she added him (spam) and he archived it, which can easily be done instead of deleting

Yes! I've just remembered, you can be added to a chat by someone and if neither of you posts anything it will just have the encryption message.

Seriously OP, there is nothing here.

Hey Opera, bit of a side comment but you can check whether your number or email address have been leaked online by checking

haveibeenpwned.com/

Having said that, my number isn't showing up but I've had maybe 3 spam texts in the last couple of days, so either someone is using a number generator or it's just not been widely posted on the common sites yet...

i am in no way WhatsApp savvy but I would mentally file this away under "could be used in evidence" and move on. Given that there is nothing else to suggest he is cheating I would be extremely cautious about mentioning it as the consequences could be very detrimental to your relationship.

I'm not sure you'll be back to read this but to me, what jumped out is not anything around the technicalities of WhatsApp or his intentions etc. It's that you seem really familiar with his phone and messages to the point of knowing when this archived folder appeared and then looking into it immediately.

Obviously I don't know anything more about your relationship than what you have posted here but honestly, that in itself doesn't sound healthy. You seem unsure if you can trust your partner despite the fact you don't seem to think other women would be interested. But haven't mentioned why he can't trust you and why you feel the need to check his phone?

I don't check his phone. We were both getting messages from a group chat we are in making arrangements for something so we we sitting next to each other on the sofa.

It wasn't there before.

If he'd archived instead of deleting accidentally, he'd have realised because he'd have seen it.

I'm familiar with his phone because he doesn't hide it and is open with it. He sits next to me to read hisesages because they are often from group chats we are both in. Which is why I think he'd archived something so it a message wouldn't pop up.

I don't know.

If he was in the habit of archiving spammers and estranged family members, I wouldn't have noticed anything because the folder would have already been there.

I suppose I think that either he is doing something in which case I need to end it or he isn't and I'm just incredibly untrusting in which case, he deserves better.

The end to end encryption message doesn't disappear when you start a chat. It's the message asking if you want to add this person to your contacts that disappears.

I had a brief message exchange with someone recently and cleared the chat to see what it looked like. It looks like the message he had. Messages have been exchanged but cleared. Why keep it otherwise? You can't send an empty message so, whatever was exchanged, was deleted and the person archived.

Has he deleted and reinstall WhatsApp lately? That's previously deleted my conversation history.

I just looked I had 46 archived chats. I think it's because if you delete them that's the first thing it offers.

Same for me! I have loads of random staff that I can barely remember in archive. Some are people contacted once about something specific eg. Work event, booking something, people I have contacted for a quote for something etc

I deleted a chat with my sil. She then messaged me again and it was in archives - very odd, I never use archives. I replied to her message and, again, went to delete the chat. I noticed the immediate choice was ' archive'. You had to press another button to get into more options such as delete. I'd obviously, without posting attention, archived her first chat. 🤷‍♀️ easily done