WhatsApp may soon make one of its most basic features a lot more convenient. According to details spotted in the latest iPhone beta version of the app, WhatsApp is developing a new contacts hub designed to make checking who’s online much easier.
Right now, finding out whether someone is active on WhatsApp is surprisingly manual. Users have to open individual chats one by one and check the top of each conversation to see if a contact is online or when they were last active. That could soon change.
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According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is testing a redesigned Contacts section that groups online activity into a single place. The upcoming hub will reportedly display favourite contacts at the top, followed by users who are currently online and then people who were recently active.
The feature was discovered in the latest WhatsApp beta for iPhone, although it is not yet publicly available even for most testers. WABetaInfo says it managed to manually activate the hidden interface during testing.
The update appears to be aimed at making the app feel more dynamic and social without fundamentally changing how WhatsApp privacy works.
Importantly, WhatsApp is not removing its existing privacy protections. Users will still only be able to see someone else’s online status if they also choose to share their own activity status. In other words, if you hide your “last seen” or online visibility, you won’t be able to track other users either.
The new Contacts hub is reportedly accessible through the app’s Settings menu rather than the main Chats tab. That suggests WhatsApp may position it more as an optional utility feature than a core redesign of the app experience.
As with many WhatsApp beta discoveries, there’s no guarantee the feature will launch soon. The company is known for taking its time to roll out experimental tools globally across iPhone and Android.
Still, if released, the feature could save users from endlessly tapping through chats just to figure out who’s active at any given moment.
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