Since we’ve migrated away from instant messaging apps like MSN Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger to apps like Facebook, it’s become more difficult to find your conversation history. Many apps make it pretty obvious how to quickly search a conversation by name, but really digging in to find a specific message can sometimes be a tricky business.
WhatsApp message, photo via Shutterstock.
Popular messaging service WhatsApp seems to only search through conversation history, while other platforms like iMessage and Facebook Messages seem to be seriously lagging behind. Luckily, there are tips and tricks for finding conversations in all three of these apps.
Facebook Messages
As mobile usage continues to grow, Facebook continues to add features to its Messenger app before adding them to the website. However, search as an area of the app still lags significantly behind the desktop Facebook website. Currently, you can’t search for specific messages in a conversation in the Messenger app. The only function the search bar serves is to find the names of the Facebook friends you’ve messaged.
This is where Facebook’s website remains one step ahead, as it has a powerful search feature located in Messages. The easiest way to access it is to first click on the Messages icon in the top right when logging in. Then click See All.
On the left, enter your search query. At first, Facebook only looked for the person or the name of the conversation. Below that, you can click Message Search to start searching in messages for the word or phrase you entered. The great thing is that Facebook automatically sorts the results in reverse chronological order and searches all your archived messages with all your friends, if necessary, go back in time. many years ago.
Also, if you click on a result, you’ll be taken directly to that section of your conversation history. Clicking the right and left arrows also cycle through the results pages.
iMessage
iMessage has always had search issues, and an iOS or OS X update hasn’t fixed them yet. Yes, you can backup or search through chats, but that’s not an easy task and there are limitations.
On iOS, you can bring up the search bar in the Messages app by scrolling down or tapping the time at the top of the screen. Like Facebook, iMessage prioritizes searching people’s names first over keywords in chats. If it finds a keyword, it will list that conversation as a search result. Tapping it will open the chat and highlight the most recent message your query was used for.
Note: Good luck trying to navigate the search results if you’re looking for other instances in the same conversation as the Messages app doesn’t allow it. It’s the same story in the Messages app for OS X. It just makes searching useless unless you’re just looking for something recent.
Flexibits, the creators of Fantastical, have a remedy called Chatology. It’s a Mac app that does searches the right way, rounds up your entire iMessage history, and lets you search through names or conversations. It goes back to the full value of messages from the past year and even cleverly organizes images and links separately. The purchase may take some consideration for the $19.99 price tag, but it certainly gets the job done.
WhatsApp is the only major contender in the messaging war that has almost perfected the art of finding, especially when it comes to browsing through archives. Electricity users should take note.
Everything you need to search through WhatsApp conversations is built in. Just drag down in Chat view to bring up the search bar and type what you’re looking for (Android users will find a search option somewhere in the top menu). WhatsApp highlights words or phrases in search results and includes multiple instances in the same chat. It even searches through archived messages. Tapping on a result will go directly to that part of the conversation and highlight it, just like in iMessage.
An added benefit of using WhatsApp is that it is cross-platform. If you’re looking for something specific in your conversation history and messaging your friends on WhatsApp, you don’t need to worry about which messaging service to search through.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
