WhatsApp seems to be all set to make it easier for users to find relevant stickers for their conversations, nearly two years after bringing sticker packs to its platform. The latest beta version of WhatsApp for Android gives a glimpse of the new experience. It comes with a search bar to let you easily find stickers from your collection. Also, there are distinct tabs – categorising different stickers on WhatsApp on the basis of their emotions, such as love, greetings, and happiness.
As first spotted by WhatsApp features tracker WABetaInfo, the change is a part of WhatsApp version 2.20.198.5 beta for Android. It brings a lens button that sits next to the emoji, GIF, and sticker shortcuts to let you search for the available stickers. Once you tab that button, the instant messaging app opens a screen that provides you with a search bar as well as shows all your stored stickers in distinct tabs, namely All, Love, Greetings, Happy, Sad, Angry, and Celebrate.
You can either move from one tab to another to find a relevant sticker for your conversation. Alternatively, WhatsApp has provided the search bar to let you find a sticker by typing the emotion you want to express through it.
Notably, WhatsApp has provided the search feature temporarily as it disappears once you use it for the first time. This means that you won’t be able to see the lens button on a permanent basis even on the beta version. Nevertheless, its appearance at a glance is enough to suggest how the messaging app would enable sticker search on its platform.
You can experience the addition of sticker search by downloading the latest beta version of WhatsApp from Google Play. Alternatively, you can download its APK file from APK Mirror.
WhatsApp was originally spotted enabling the search feature for stickers shortly after it introduced sticker packs on its platform back in October 2018. However, up until now, just some screenshots leaked online suggested the new addition.
Alongside enabling sticker search, WhatsApp is apparently in development to bring multiple device support that would be called Linked Devices. A recent reference suggested that the messaging app would enable syncing of chat history across all platforms to enable multiple device support.
In 2020, will WhatsApp get the killer feature that every Indian is waiting for? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.