WhatsApp launches chat filters: how they work

Whatsapp has just announced the arrival of the new ones chat filters, which should not be confused with message filters, which already exist even if they are changed often. The innovation responds to the needs of many users, those who use the platform massively and who keep dozens of active chats at the same time.

The purpose of the filters, in fact, is not to find a specific message but to show some highlighted chats within the app. One of the three filters, the one for groups, was particularly requested for several years by WhatsApp users.

How WhatsApp filters work

THE WhatsApp filters they are, in practice, some labels which appear at the top of the app, above the chat list. This is possible because, a few days ago, WhatsApp launched a restyling of the app which moved the navigation bar to the bottom.

There are currently only three filters:

By selecting All you have the classic view, the one with the chats that move up and down the list based on the last message sent by at least one member of the chat.

By selecting Not read, as you can easily imagine, only chats in which there are messages to read are shown. This view can prove to be very important if you participate in particularly delicate chats, in which it is best not to miss a single message.

By selecting Groupsfinally, only group chats are shown, regardless of whether there are new messages to read or not.

WhatsApp says these are the filters”to start“, so it is possible that in the future that more will arrive or, better yet, the app will one day allow you to create new ones based on your needs.

Finally, we specify that these filters they have nothing to do with it with those that already exist, which can be used in searches for individual messages to show only those with images, documents, links or gifs.

Those filters remain, but they are only available when searching for specific terms. The choice of terms in this case was quite unfortunate because the old filters are used to find a message, while the new ones are used to find a chat.

When the filters arrive

The new chat filters have not yet reached the majority of Italians and, perhaps, it will take several days before this happens. WhatsApp says the news is in the implementation phase and that it will reach all users”in the next weeks“.

Unfortunately, however, WhatsApp has accustomed us to quite long waits too between the announcement of a new feature and its actual implementation in apps. So we can’t be sure of the date when the filters will actually be available: it could be very little, but also quite a while.