WhatsApp’s new free upgrade is superbly social

It's time for another WhatsApp upgrade, and if like many of us you use the app to keep track of multiple types of communications – family chats, work stuff, social groups, school clubs and all the other kinds of communications that modern life entails – then you're going to like this one. The new Lists feature takes the previously introduced Chat Filters and makes them more useful.

With Chat Filters, WhatsApp enabled you to sort chats into three different categories: All, Unread and Groups. That was a big time saver, but it was still a pretty blunt instrument – especially if you're a member of multiple chat groups, which would all end up under the same Groups tab. With the new Lists, you can make your own categories.

What's so great about WhatsApp lists?

For many of us, WhatsApp connects us to a wide range of people for a wide range of reasons. It's not always as black and white as having one lot of chats for friends and another for work.

In my own case my WhatsApp messages include work and personal messages but also messages from my kids' schoolmates' parents, from after-school clubs, from groups I'm in and from various businesses too. So being able to separate those different things more easily is a big plus – and separating them is just a matter of clicking on a big plus.

To use the new feature, all you need to do is tap on the plus icon in the filter bar at the top of your Chats list. And you can edit existing Lists by long-pressing on them.

As ever with WhatsApp upgrades this is rolling out globally so it might not appear on your phone immediately but it's worth ensuring you have the most recent version from your phone platform's app store.