WhatsApp: How to discover who your best friends are - using a hidden tool within the application
A recent update quietly added the handy function, but it is well hidden
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Your support makes all the difference.WhatsApp has quietly introduced a new feature which allows users to keep tabs on their data usage – with an unexpected result.
The “storage usage” function hidden away within the application now also provides users with an effective leader board, ranking their contacts and groups by the number of messages sent and received.
Finding out exactly who your best friends are is surprisingly simple, but unless you are a fastidious data tracker you may never have thought to look.
To reveal your own leader board, go to “settings” on the right of the app’s main toolbar.
From there, select “storage usage” down at the bottom. It will show the total number of messages you have sent and received at the bottom, as well as a breakdown of the number in each conversation from high to low.
Larger group chats are of course more likely to dominate the rankings, but it will also show you the individuals you correspond with the most.
According to The Telegraph’s Rhiannon Williams, the app was “quietly introduced” as part of WhatsApp update 2.12.3 in June this year.
The function can also be used to see which of your conversations takes up the most space on your phone, by hitting the “size” tab at the bottom.
A note that, if you do decide to delete a thread that is clogging up significant memory, you’ll need to tap the “refresh” arrow button in the top right before newly freed up memory will show up.
The tool was unfortunately only introduced for iOS users at the start of the summer. Android users can see their total messages sent and some information on data use – but that’s about it.
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