WhatsApp could finally let new group members see past messages on iPhone: here's how it works

WhatsApp could finally offer a fix for new users joining a group by offering group members the ability to share their chat history with the new joinee. The feature was released via a new iOS update through the TestFlight beta program and spotted by WABetainfo.

The feature was earlier teased for the WhatsApp for Android but it seems like the Meta owned personal messaging platform is planning to bring it to a wider audience with the planned iOS rollout.

What is group chat history feature?

Reportedly, the new feature will allow new group members to receive messages shared before they joined the group to get to know the purpose of the group and context behind previous conversations. While other platforms like Telegram offer the functionality to check the previous esaages in the group, WhatsApp currently only allows users to read messages posted after they have joined a group.

The feature would reportedly allow new members to receive u to 100 recent messages share in the group over the last 14 days. The messages sent this way are highlighted in a different colour in order to instantly make them recognizable from new messages.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp will also let older members will also be notified that the group chats have been sent to the new member. The company will also add a message to the group chat with the name of the user who share the messages with the new group member.

The feature will be shown while adding a new member t the group. After selecting the ‘Add member’ option, the new option to share recent messages should appear at the bottom of the screen. The user will have choice to either share up to 100 messages or limit to a smaller subset of messages.

However, the feature is turned off by default and WhatsApp does not automatically send the chat history to new members in the group. The app will also show alerts when the users try to share messages with the new members.

Reportedly, these alerts would be shown till three times and from the fourth time onwards the messages would be shared as soon as the user confirms the action.

The latest update is currently only available to WhatsApp for iOS users who downloaded the update via TestFlight app. The report notes that this is a gradual rollout and a release date is currently not available.