Facebook is rolling out new features on Messenger and Instagram to allow more self-expression and help people feel together even when they’re apart.
As we rely more and more on instant messaging tools to connect and communicate these days, Facebook is constantly working on new features that help people express themselves more.
Related | This New Instagram Sticker Lets You Automatically Caption Your Stories
Among these, there are some new chat themes on Messenger, visual replies and the ability to see if someone has seen your message on Instagram – and the ability to swipe to archive messages on Messenger.
There are two new chat themes out now – Star Wars, and Selena: The Series – to personalize your conversations and celebrate the series you love. To turn on a theme in Messenger and Instagram, go to your chat settings and tap on Theme.
You can now send visual replies in Instagram DMs on iOS. This could be a photo or a video of your choice. Just tap on the camera icon to respond with a photo or video. On Messenger, you can also tap-to-record audio messages, letting you go totally “hands-free.”
In addition to the above, you can now see read receipts in Instagram DMs. In one-on-one chats, you will see the “Seen just now” or “Seen 1h ago” text snippet, while in group chats you will see “Seen by [name] +6.”
Finally, you can now clean up your chats by adding them to your archives. Messenger now has a swipe to archive feature that will let you easily archive your messages. You can then find those chats in the new Archived Chats folder on mobile.
To search through archived conversations, tap on your profile photo and choose Archived Chats to see all archived message threads.
Images: Facebook