WhatsApp tests new feature to separate business messages from personal chats

Mark Zuckerberg stated during Meta’s second-quarter 2026 earnings conference call that the company’s “Other Business” segment revenue exceeded $1 billion, largely driven by paid messaging services and WhatsApp subscriptions.

As businesses increasingly rely on WhatsApp to communicate with consumers, users’ inboxes have become cluttered with messages, making it difficult to locate personal and group chats.

According to a report by the technology news site TechCrunch, Meta is now testing a new feature that segregates incoming messages from major companies, such as banks and airlines, into a separate folder.

When a user receives a message from a large company, WhatsApp will automatically move that message to a new folder named “Offers & Updates” after a specified number of hours.

Users who prefer to keep messages in the main conversation timeline can disable this setting. However, they will not be able to control the timing of the automatic message transfer.

Meta said the feature will remove messages, such as discount codes and delivery updates, from the inbox after a few hours, thereby reducing clutter in the main chat list.

For businesses, this means users will be able to find their messages in a dedicated folder rather than having them lost among all other conversations.

WhatsApp initially tested this feature with a limited number of partners using WhatsApp Business, with plans to expand the rollout based on test results.

Currently, the feature does not apply to small businesses or individual accounts using WhatsApp Business.

Over the past few years, WhatsApp has taken several steps to reduce annoying messages from companies.

In 2024, the app began allowing users to unsubscribe from marketing messages from brands.

Last year, it imposed limits on the number of bulk messages that businesses and individuals could send within a specific timeframe.

In October 2025, it went further by limiting the number of messages companies could send without receiving a reply from users. The company has fully rolled out the first two measures, while still working on developing the third.