WhatsApp Channels Finally Gets Search, Plus Message Animation Toggle

The part of this story that gets buried is the message animation toggle, which signals something more interesting than a search box: WhatsApp is quietly giving iPhone users more granular control over how the app behaves visually. Both changes land in the same update.

Search inside WhatsApp Channels has been missing for roughly a year and a half since the broadcast feature launched. Until now, finding an old post meant scrolling back manually through everything a channel had ever published. The fix works the same way as the standard chat search: open any channel, tap the channel name to pull up its info page, and a search button appears. Type a keyword and the app highlights matching posts in real time, with arrow buttons to step through results.

The feature ships in WhatsApp version 26.24.72 on iOS, available now through the App Store. The rollout is staged, so some users may wait a few days before it appears.

A Second Change Tucked Into the Same Release

WhatsApp is also restoring message animations on iPhone, this time with a toggle that lets users turn them on or off. The detail is easy to overlook next to the search announcement, but it suggests the company is paying more attention to how individual users want to configure their experience rather than applying one visual treatment to everyone.

Channels tend to attract high-volume accounts, news publishers, and public figures who post frequently. Without search, the feature was genuinely difficult to use as an archive or reference tool. Adding search does not change what Channels are, but it does change how practical they are for anyone who follows more than a handful of active ones.