Summary
- WhatsApp is developing a centralized media hub for its web client, allowing users to easily browse all shared images, videos, GIFs, documents, and links from all their chats in one location.
- The new web media hub, spotted in beta, will feature search with caption support, sorting options (by date and size), contextual details for documents and links, and a multi-select function for bulk actions like deleting and forwarding.
- While the WhatsApp mobile app has a less functional storage management section that offers some media oversight, the upcoming web feature aims to provide a more user-friendly and comprehensive solution for finding and managing shared media across all conversations.
There’s always that one meme, be it a video, photo, or GIF, that was sent to you on WhatsApp, and now you can’t find it. You could go into a specific chat’s media history to scour, but that isn’t an ideal scenario when you don’t remember who shared the media file.
It’s a niche problem, but a real one, and it looks like WhatsApp is finally addressing it with a better media management hub, starting with the messaging platform’s web client.
The development, which will reportedly first make its way to WhatsApp Web (not the desktop app) was spotted by the folks over at WABetaInfo in an early beta build.
According to the report, the messaging giant is working on a dedicated media hub that will highlight all media files, including videos, images, GIFs, links, and documents from all your chats under one roof. The hub will have its own icon in the left-aligned bar, appearing right above the Settings icon.
Sort, search, and select
Source: WABetaInfo
The section will let users sift through all media files to find the desired image, video, GIF, document, or link. If viable, users would also be able to search for the exact media file with its accompanying caption. Elsewhere, the section will reportedly house an option to sort media files by recency and size.
Exclusively for documents and links, the section will also highlight contextual details like the name of the contact who shared the file/link and the date it was sent. Lastly, as seen at the top right of the image above, the section will also offer a multi-select button, allowing users to select multiple files at once for forwarding, deleting, or downloading.
For what it’s worth, the WhatsApp mobile app already offers a similar hub, although it’s way less functional and more convoluted to get to. Heading to WhatsApp’s Settings → Storage and data → Manage storage surfaces a hub-like interface that highlights the total storage occupied by WhatsApp media, paired files from across your chats that are ‘Larger than 5 MB.’ What WhatsApp is building for the web appears to be a more user-friendly alternative.
The centralized media hub is currently in development. It isn’t clear when it may become widely available. An equivalent for the mobile app version would certainly be welcome.
