Today, WhatsApp introduced a novel feature called “search by date” for both individual and group chats on Android devices. While this functionality has been available on other platforms like iOS, Mac desktop, and WhatsApp Web, it’s now rolling out to Android users.
Mark Zuckerberg shared the news on his WhatsApp channel, demonstrating the feature with a video of him searching for an old chat about Karaoke. With this feature, users can search for chats on specific dates rather than specifying a date range.
To utilize the feature, users need to navigate to the details of a one-on-one or group chat by tapping on the contact or group name. From there, they can initiate a search by tapping on the search button and selecting the calendar icon.
Additionally, users can already search through conversations based on media type, such as links, media, and documents, directly from the conversation detail page.
WhatsApp has been exploring other search-related features as well. In December, WABetaInfo reported that the company was experimenting with chat filters like “All,” “Unread,” “Contacts,” and “Groups.” More recently, they mentioned the development of another filter called “Favorites,” designed to quickly access starred messages.
Last week, WhatsApp introduced support for new text formatting options such as bulleted lists, numbered lists, block quotes, and inline code for both individual and group chats, along with Channels.
