WhatsApp’s Ephemeral Status Updates May Come Soon to the Main Chats Tab

WhatsApp is reportedly preparing to test the integration of ephemeral Status updates at the top of the app’s Chat tab. WABetaInfo reports that the latest beta versions of WhatsApp for iOS and Android show traces of an upcoming integration of Status updates into the Chats tab, though the feature isn’t working yet.

Status updates on WhatsApp disappear after 24 hours, and they’re pretty much a copycat of the Stories format pioneered by Snapchat over 10 years ago. Both Instagram and Facebook show ads between ephemeral stories, and WhatsApp started to do the same between Status updates last year, except in the EU.

As of today, Status updates are visible at the top of WhatsApp’s Updates tab, which is the home of WhatsApp Channels, the one-way broadcast tool allowing organizations to send messages to their followers on the platform. However, you can also view Status updates from WhatsApp’s Chats tab if you tap on the profile pictures of contacts with a green circle around them.

As Instagram and Facebook both put ephemeral Stories at the top of their home pages, it’s possible that WhatsApp realized that putting Status updates at the top of the Chats tab would make them (and ads) more visible to users. WhatsApp is quite slow to iterate, and we don’t know yet when the beta versions of WhatsApp for iOS and Android will start to show Status updates in the Chats tab. Earlier this week, WABetaInfo also reported that WhatsApp’s username system, which was first teased back in October 2024, had just started rolling out to some beta testers.