This has probably happened to every Messenger user: you type a message, then a new one comes, you switch to the other chat and forget the original draft – out of sight, out of mind. There the draft sediments unnoticed until you reopen the aborted chat hours or days later, perhaps with the question in the back of your mind as to why the chat partner you were supposed to have spoken to still hasn’t responded.
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The developers now want to counteract such disruptions with a small but helpful change to the user interface. Unsent messages remain permanently saved as drafts and the associated chat ends up at the top of the list. The app also colors the word “Draft” green. This allows you to keep unsent messages on your screen.
WhatsApp officially announced the innovation yesterday Friday via Threads, Instagram’s discussion platform, which, like WhatsApp, belongs to the Meta Group. This feature is not entirely new. Macwelt reported on this in July and referred to WhatsApp Web on the Mac and the iOS version of WhatsApp.
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The beginnings probably go back to last year. Teltarif reported in May 2023 about the chats with a green design note in the web beta version for Windows. WhatsApp is now introducing the function across the board on Android and iOS – which is also the background to the current Threads article. But there is still room for improvement. For example, the drafts remain on the device on which they were started and do not appear on the other WhatsApp instances. This was the result of a quick test with the iOS and WhatsApp web app on a Mac.
If the WhatsApp drafts on your smartphone look familiar, you’re right: unsent messages used to remain in the input field of a chat for a certain amount of time. However, the app did not place this chat at the top of the list or show a preview of the draft. Signal Messenger brings designs into focus in a similar way. This is missing from Apple’s iMessage.
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