- 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 despite me being an iPhone user with iMessage at my fingertips, but I do have my issues with the platform, and one of them is that when a new member is added to a chat they can't see previous messages — but that's about to change.
In a blog post, WhatsApp announced the launch of Group Message History, a function 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, no matter your device. Group Message History remains end-to-end encrypted like all other personal messages, giving you a quicker, more private way to keep conversations flowing.”
When the update arrives, existing members have the option to share previously-sent messages with new members when adding them to a group chat, although admins can choose to restrict this capability to themselves.
Though 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 joiners up to speed. It’s a slight 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 need 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 message history has been shared, including timestamps and sender information which is displayed differently from standard messages.
Until now, new group chat members have never been able to view the full conversation that happened prior to being added which, from my experience, only makes understanding group context even more difficult.
This means the group admin, or other members, would have to rely on forwarding messages or taking screenshots to give new members some context — resulting in a massive build-up in your camera roll.
There's no doubt this will lift a huge weight off serial group-chatters, myself included, and it also gives WhatsApp the upper hand over its messaging rivals. Though Telegram has a similar message history-sharing tool, it’s all or nothing, so you can’t select the amount of messages you share with new members. As for Apple’s iMessage, no such feature exists.
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