Twitter is rolling out the option for users to search for specific messages in their DMs, the company announced in a tweet. Up until now, you could only search your DMs for the names of people or group chats. With this new update, you can use the search bar to find specific messages using keywords. The new search experience is available in the iOS and Android apps, and on the web.
The company shared a GIF showing how the new search update works. You can type any keyword into the search bar, such as “restaurant” or “book.” Then, the results are filtered into three categories: all, people, groups and messages. Once you click the “messages” tab, you’ll be able to see every conversation where the keyword came up.
The new search experience works similar to how you would search for specific messages on other platforms like iMessage or Messenger.
The new update comes as Twitter recently introduced a feature that makes it easy to search an individual user’s tweets. The update started rolling out to iOS users in November. At the time, Twitter said it planned roll out the new feature to its Android and web applications in the future. Users who have access to the feature will see a search icon in the top-right corner of the screen on a user’s profile banner, next to the three-dot menu. From there, you can type in keywords to search the user’s tweets.
It was already possible to perform searches like this on Twitter — you just needed to know how to format an advanced search. So, if you search “from:@TechCrunch Twitter,” for example, you’ll be able to see all TechCrunch tweets containing the word “Twitter,” regardless of whether you have access to the new search feature. This new feature makes that process simpler.