# Sending View-Once Messages

**View-once messages** are media messages (images or videos) that can only be viewed a single time by the recipient. To send such a message through the API, you need to set the **`view_once`** attribute to `true` when using the media message endpoint.

#### Example request

```bash
curl --request POST \
     --url https://gate.whapi.cloud/messages/image \
     --header 'accept: application/json' \
     --header 'authorization: Bearer {Your_Token}' \
     --header 'content-type: application/json' \
     --data '{
       "to": "919984351847",
       "media": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/JPEG_example_flower.jpg",
       "caption": "Hello, this is a one-time message.",
       "view_once": true
     }'

```

#### Important notes

* Only **images** and **videos** can be sent as view-once messages. Text or other media types are not supported.
* For incoming view-once messages, the **content is not displayed** in webhooks and cannot be retrieved via the GET API. This is a **WhatsApp limitation**. Even if you have the `messageId`, the internal content of a view-once message remains inaccessible.


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