[Edaily Reporter Lee So-Hyun ] Kakao(035720)has improved usability so that users can organize their KakaoTalk friend lists and chat rooms however they prefer. Users can now collapse sections such as “Update Profile” or “Friends with Birthdays” in the Friends tab, and notifications and promotional messages sent by businesses can be grouped into a separate folder.

According to Kakao on the 15th, the company rolled out version 26.8.0, the 8th regular update for KakaoTalk. This update focused on improving the convenience of frequently used features such as friend list and chat room management, video playback, and Open Profile.

The most noticeable change is to the Friends tab. Users can now expand or collapse individual sections—such as “Updated Profiles” and “Friends with Birthdays”—displayed at the top of the friends list as they wish. By collapsing sections they don’t want to see, users can enjoy a cleaner, more streamlined screen centered on their friends list.

This can be seen as part of an ongoing trend of usability improvements following last year’s redesign of the KakaoTalk Friends tab. Last September, Kakao changed the Friends tab to a grid-based feed, but after facing user backlash, it restored the Friends list as the default screen in December of the same year. Following the previous move to separate “Friends” and “News” and allow users to choose between them, this update expands user choice by letting them directly adjust which sections are displayed within the Friends list.

A new “Channel Folder” has been added to the Chat tab. It allows users to view all notification messages and promotional messages from KakaoTalk Channels in one place. This feature reduces the inconvenience of order, delivery, and reservation notifications—as well as messages sent by companies and brands—getting mixed in with regular chat rooms.

The “Unread Folder,” which groups chat rooms with unread messages, has also been updated so that users can enable or disable it as needed. Users can add the Unread Folder to their folder list or exclude it entirely.

Users can now manage notifications for chat room folders they’ve created themselves all at once. If you’ve grouped multiple chat rooms—such as those for work, family, or friends—into a single folder, you can enable or disable notifications for all chat rooms within that folder at once.

Features to enhance content consumption have also been added. When playing a video in a chat room, pressing and holding the screen plays the video at double speed while the button is held down. When you release your finger, it returns to the original speed.

The “Open Profile” feature used in Open Chat has also been updated. The design of the Open Profile home screen has been revised so that frequently used features—such as one-on-one chats and profile editing—can be easily found.

Posts, which were previously viewed as individual entries, now appear in a feed format. Users can scroll up and down the screen to view posts and photos continuously. The maximum number of Open Profiles a single user can create has also increased from 3 to 5.

In addition, this update introduces changes to Kakao’s advertising spaces. According to prior notice provided by Kakao Moment to advertisers, in KakaoTalk v26.8.0 and later, the position of “Profile Full View” ads—which appear in the “Update Profile” section of the Friends tab—will move from the fourth to the third position. This change coincides with the addition of a collapse/expand feature to the Update Profile slot, resulting in the ad being displayed one position earlier in the sequence.

This new feature is available in KakaoTalk version 26.8.0 and later.