It’s not often we Android owners get to lord something over the iPhone drones, but when we do… it’s usually entirely inconsequential. That trend hasn’t broken. Today, WABetaInfo reported that WhatsApp is working to bring a dedicated search shortcut directly to chats. Before, digging through old messages was, well, a hassle.
Combing through the ancient texts
The process involved opening a specific chat or group chat, pushing through to their profile, and then clicking the search button. It’s slightly easier on iPadOS, where a user can remain inside the chat before engaging search mode. Even after you’d completed those steps, the search itself was always limited to that specific chat.
That’s changing, and soon. It may not get the parity it arguably needs with the Android version, but it’s a start. As it stands, Android users have both the option to search old messages inside of a chat, as well as outside it. Searching for a word or phrase from the chats home page will hunt through all available messages, not just a specific chat.
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The upgrade was discovered inside the beta for iOS 26.31.10.70, and points to the iOS experience getting a minor upgrade. It won’t search all the available chats, but users can now access the chat shortcut from inside the chat. They’ll first have to scroll up in the chat a bit before the new shortcut appears over the keyboard.
It’s arguably a very minor change, but one that’ll spare users a frankly annoying little detour. As for when it’ll turn up, however, not even WABetaInfo could say. It’s still yet to reach beta testers at the time of writing, which could mean it’ll be a while before it’s pushed out publicly.
