How many open chats do you currently have on WhatsApp? Inactive but open, that is, chats with people you have not spoken to for months or with groups that you have not left despite being inactive for a long time. In any case, it is clear that so many conversations can make it difficult to find a specific person or group, and for this reason WhatsApp has found a solution: favorites.

A new filter. A few weeks ago WhatsApp was updated to add filters. Thanks to this system, we can filter the redundancies, the conversations, forgive them and see only those waiting to be read or groups. Now there is a new one: favorites. As its name suggests, we can add to this filter the conversations (individual or group) that we want to always have at hand.

Wasn’t there something similar? Yes, more or less: pinned chats. These chats are pinned at the top of the home screen to always have them at hand, but the truth is that their functionality is limited. Because? Because it is only possible to pin five chats and it is possible to have more than the important ones (family, friends, work colleagues, your ‘LoL’ team, school parent group…).

This is how you add a group to your favourites on WhatsApp | Image: Xataka

Favorites. To solve this little problem, favorites come into play. By adding a person or group to your favorites, you can ignore any other conversations you have open and only see the ones you decide to see. To mark a person as a favorite, simply do one of the following:

• On the chat or call screen, tap and hold a contact or group, tap the three dots, and select “Mark as favorite.”
• On the “Favorites” filter screen, select the contacts you want to add.

The order doesn’t matter as you can reorder them at any time.

Gradual rollout. WhatsApp announced the feature just a few hours ago and it’s rolling out gradually. According to the company, “We’re rolling out this feature to users today and it will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.” It’s only a matter of time before it’s available to everyone. In any case, it never hurts to make sure we keep the app up to date.

Cover image | Created by WhatsApp Xataka

On Xataka | WhatsApp has launched in beta a feature that will completely change our experience: transcription