WhatsApp for Android is making it much easier to find older messages
Android users catch up with iOS
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
WhatsAppusers on Android just got access to a feature that iPhone owners have been making use of for a while now: the ability to search through conversations by date, which makes it much easier to dig out old chats.
The new feature was announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on hisWhatsApp channel(viaTechCrunch), and is apparently rolling out to Android devices now – so if you don’t have it already, you should see it soon.
To use it, head into any of your chats, then tap the three dots (top right) andSearch. You should then see a calendar icon in the top-right corner, which you can tap on to jump to messages sent and received on a particular day. You can also tap on the name of the conversation at the top to find theSearchoption.
This is all very similar to how the ‘search by date’ function works on other platforms, but Android has been lagging behind in this respect – evenWhatsAppfor the web offers the option to search through chats by date.
Regular updates
This is of course a handy and welcome addition for WhatsApp users on Android, as it could save a serious amount of scrolling – assuming of course, that you can remember the date when you got the message or media file you’re looking for.
To give the WhatsApp team credit, it’s an app that gets new features on a regular basis, though not always at the same time on Android and iOS. The app actually looks different depending on which mobile OS you’re using – Android puts the navigation tabs at the top, for example, but they’re underneath the chat list on iOS.
Despite these disparities, the app continues to grow in popularity as a cross-platform, secure, and reliable messaging platform. It’sestimated to havearound 2 billion active users worldwide, which is a fair chunk of the global population.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
In recent months we’ve seen WhatsApp roll out upgrades forphoto and video sharing, as well as test an expansion ofthe Chat Lock feature, making it easier to protect certain conversations across multiple devices.
You might also like
Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.
How to delete a character from Character AI
How to turn off Meta AI
Belkin’s Travel Bag for Vision Pro has pockets and is way cheaper than Apple’s own case
