WhatsApp just got a great free upgrade to give you the gift of time

(Image credit: Rik Henderson / Future)

published 15 November 2024

Quick Summary

WhatsApp has added a new Drafts feature.

It will automatically save unfinished messages and put them at the top of your Chats list so you don't forget about them.

If you're juggling many things at once or just find that your train of thought is easily rerouted, the latest free WhatsApp update for iPhone and Android is going to be very welcome.

The new feature, which is rolling out worldwide now, enables you to pause while writing a message and come back to it later without losing what you've already typed or said.

The new Drafts feature is a familiar one in other apps, such as social media or email applications. But, it's not something you tend to find in messaging apps.

Its addition is genuinely useful – I'm always having to stop messaging because of something else happening, so the ability to freeze-frame a WhatsApp message without having to retrace your steps is really handy.

How to get the new WhatsApp drafts feature

As ever with WhatsApp feature updates, it'll arrive automatically. And, when you save a draft it'll be clearly labelled as such, with a big green bold "Draft" underneath the recipient's name and immediately before the text preview.

Your Drafts will automatically move to the top of your chat list so you can easily see your unfinished messages. To resume a draft, it's just a matter of tapping on it and picking up from where you left off.

WhatsApp has been on a bit of an updating frenzy lately. In October it added customised lists, improved contact management, changes to status updates and a range of filters and backgrounds for video calls; and in September it added real-time communication with Meta AI.

But it's features like the new Drafts functionality that I think makes the biggest difference. It's not as headline-friendly as adding artificial intelligence, but is the kind of little improvement that you'll find yourself using again and again. That means it has the potential to be quite a big time saver.

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).