With over a 1.5 billion people using WhatsApp to communicate on a daily basis everyone’s chat archive builds up over time. What if later you wish to find an address that your friend shared with you on WhatsApp. Swiping within a chat to get to the desired message is a mundane and time killing task. And it’s such a disappointment when you don’t find the message you’re looking for. To take care of that WhatsApp has the option to search messages within certain chats for both Android and iPhone. In this tutorial, we let you know how to use it and search specific WhatsApp chats or groups.
You can also search within all the chats at once if you wish. You can use it if you are not sure about the sender of the message you’re searching for. That feature performs a search in all the chats and groups. We have mentioned the steps for that too.
Search Specific WhatsApp Chats/Groups
Update the app to the latest version 2.17.60(iPhone) and 2.17.267(Android) or later to make use of the individual chat search feature. After the update is done you’re good to proceed ahead. The procedure for both the platforms iOS and Android are mentioned.
- Launch WhatsApp and open the conversation which you wish to search.
Android
- In the conversation screen, tap on 3 dots at the top right and select Search.
- This will make a search bar appear at the top of the chat.
- Type the search query and let the search function do the rest.
iPhone
- Under the individual chat or group, you opened tap on it’s name above.
- This will take you to Contact/Group Info screen. Tap on Chat Search in this screen.
- Now, the chat will be opened with a search box at the top. Type in the word or phrase you recollect from the message.
Boom! In a jiffy, you will be taken to an instance of the searched word highlighted in yellow in the whole conversation if it exists. In case of multiple messages matching the search query, there will be an up and down arrow to navigate through the messages containing the search keyword.
Similarly, you can search in other WhatsApp chats or groups.
Search In All WhatsApp Chats At Once
- Open your updated WhatsApp application
- Go to Chats Tab and you’ll find the search bar at the top.
- You can type in your word/phrase which you want to search.
- As soon as you type your search word or phrase, the same will be searched in entire chat of all the contacts and groups and results will show up from the chats where your word matches.
- As soon as you click on the chat for which your word/phrase matches it will take you to the message where the word matches in the entire conversation
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Apart from all this, you can also search members within a group. Here’s how.
Search Group Participants On WhatsApp
- Launch WhatsApp and select the desired Group where you want to search for a person.
- When you are inside the Group conversation tap on the Group name at the top to go to Group Info.
- Under Group Info, go down where it shows the Participants. Now, you will see SEARCH option (iPhone) or search icon (Android) at the top right of the list. Tap on it.
- This will take you to Search Participants screen. Type the name or number of the person you are looking for in the search bar at the top.
- If that person exists in that group it will appear in the results. After that, you can tap on their name to get a list of quick actions. From the menu, you can send them a message in personal chat or place voice/video call directly from the group.
Similarly, you can search participants in other WhatsApp groups.
Conclusion
Searching participants is yet another handy feature on WhatsApp. It not only lets you find a person in the group in a jiffy but also allows you to message or call them immediately.
Also, from now on, finding specific messages on WhatsApp are just a tap away. Pretty useful feature of a great messaging app. Isn’t it, what are your thoughts? Drop a comment and let us know.
