WhatsApp’s new pinned messages make it easy to keep group chats on task

WhatsApp is adding the ability to pin a message to the top of your chats for up to 30 days. Meta says that the feature, which its mobile Facebook Messenger app already has, is rolling out to users now, so not everyone will see it right away.

Meta says to do so, users will need to long-press on a message and tap “Pin.” Seven days is the default duration for a pin, but users can choose to change that to either 24 hours or 30 days. Any message can be pinned, so if you want to pin a poll, a picture, or even a video, you can. Group chat admins can make a pin visible only to other admins, too.

This feature is begging to be added to all direct messaging chat apps, given the deeply frustrating experience of trying to plan anything in a busy group chat in iMessage or, worse, an SMS thread. Between threads polluted with thoughts broken into multiple messages or strewn with unrelated jokes, asides, and GIFs, it’s so easy to miss key information about what’s going on. Pinning messages anywhere would be manna from heaven.

Last year, Meta started a marketing push to make WhatsApp as popular in the US as it is elsewhere in the world as it steadily adds new features. That includes privacy-focused ones like self-destructing voice messages that disappear after they’ve been listened to and the ability to hide locked chats. Meta also began rolling out full-quality image and video sharing in WhatsApp earlier this month for iOS users.