- WhatsApp is rolling out a group chat feature called Group Message History
- It gives new group members an easier way to catch up on conversations
- Existing group members can choose to share between 25-100 previously sent messages with new members
WhatsApp is my go-to for group chats, even though I’m an iPhone user with iMessage close at hand, I do have my issues with the platform, one of which is that when a new member is added to a chat, they can’t see previous messages – but that’s changing.
In a blog post, WhatsApp announced the launch of Group Message History, a feature that gives new group members an easy way to catch up on previously sent messages. WhatsApp says it has “started rolling out Group Message History gradually”.
The post says: “One of our most requested features, it’s another example of how WhatsApp is leading the way in group messaging, regardless of your device. Group message history remains end-to-end encrypted like all other personal messages, giving you a faster and more private way to keep conversations flowing.”
When the update arrives, existing members will have the ability to share previously sent messages with new members when they add them to a group chat, although admins can choose to restrict this ability to themselves.
While new members won’t get access to the full chat history, members will have the option to share the last 25-100 messages in a chat with them, which should be enough to bring new members up to speed. It’s a small catch, but one that WhatsApp has implemented for privacy reasons.
With that in mind, if you forget to do this when adding new members to a conversation, you won’t be able to share messages with them after you’ve added them, meaning you’ll have to remove them and add them again to share messages.
Once you’ve shared your selected messages with a new member, WhatsApp will notify existing chat members when the message history has been shared, including timestamps and sender information, which is displayed differently than standard messages.
Until now, new group chat members have never been able to see the full conversation that happened before they were added, which in my experience only makes understanding the group context even more difficult.
This means that the group admin or other members have to rely on forwarding messages or taking screenshots to give new members some context – resulting in a massive build up of your camera roll.
No doubt this will lift a huge weight from serial group chatters, myself included, and it also gives WhatsApp the upper hand over its messaging rivals. Although Telegram has a similar message history sharing tool, it’s all or nothing, so you can’t choose the amount of messages you share with new members. As for Apple’s iMessage, no such feature exists.
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