WhatsApp's latest feature makes it easier to find your next favorite channel

Last year, WhatsApp introduced channels — a convenient way to keep up with news outlets, famous individuals, and other broadcasters. The feature lives in the messaging app itself and acts like a one-sided conversation, where users can only read and react to announcements with emojis. To make discovering relevant channels easier, WhatsApp is launching a dedicated directory that users can browse through.

WhatsApp announced today that it’s launching a directory of channels that categorizes them based on their topics. You can explore channels associated with the following categories: People, Organizations, Lifestyle, Sports, Entertainment, Businesses, and News & Information.

So, for example, if you’re interested in public figures, you can browse the People section, which lists some celebrities you may want to follow. Similarly, the News & Information section highlights several notable outlets you can add to receive timely updates. While unofficial WhatsApp channel directories have been around for a while, integrating a native solution into the app should simplify the hunt.

To access the new directory, first ensure that you’re running the latest version of WhatsApp on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. If the feature is available to you, you can locate it by heading to the Updates tab and hitting the Explore button. You should find a list of relevant WhatsApp channels broken down by category in that spot.

It’s worth noting that Meta tends to roll out new additions gradually. So, even if you’ve installed the latest WhatsApp update, the new directory may not appear right away.