Google Allo is, without doubt, the coolest app that has come from the search engine giant in a while now. Although it comes to add to the many messaging apps we already have, you might want to try out before getting judgmental about it.
One amazing feature that Allo brings to the fold is the ability to bring the company’s digital Assistant into personal and group chats. The Google Assistant can help you with anything you want by searching the web for appropriate answers. But the greatness of Google Allo doesn’t end with here, there is more.
Although not so revolutionary, the new Google Allo brings to the fold a feature known as Incognito mode. When you enter into this mode, you will be able to take advantage of private notifications as well as disappearing messages. It gets even better as this Incognito mode also means that your messages are end-to-end encrypted. In short, this means that only you and the recipient of the messages can see them, meaning this mode will automatically block the use of Google Assistant and Smart Reply.
Speaking of Smart Reply, this is a Google Allo feature that studies your way of communicating with friends on the app and in the process provides you with smart suggestions to messages sent from them. This feature can be handy when you are not in the mood to think of a response to a message or doing something else. But as noted above, this feature will be turned off when you enter Incognito mode.
To enter this super-secret mode, open Google Allo and tap on the New Chat button at the bottom right end of the screen. Follow this by hitting the Start Incognito chat option and from the list of contacts, pick the person you want to chat with. While this mode will keep your conversations as private as possible, you will also have some other limitations other than the Google Assistant and Smart Reply features. When in Incognito mode, you won’t receive detailed notifications with names of senders and some content of the message, instead, you will only see something like “You have a new message.”
However, there is room to determine the time messages take to expire or rather get deleted. This can range from 5 seconds to one week. Alternatively, you can have the future completely turned off. To set a timer for a message, hit the timer button located in the top-right corner and then scroll to pick the option that suits you. When done, tap on “Save” and that’s it.