Overview
Every file captured automatically by the Media Library now records which kind of chat it came from: status, group, community, channel or direct chat. That information shows up on the file's detail panel and becomes a filter in the Library.
Before this, every captured file simply said "Captured from a conversation" — a status photo and a photo a customer deliberately sent you looked exactly the same. The volume explains why it matters: in one real account we analyzed, 355 of 577 files (61.5%) came from status. Most of the library was material nobody sent to your team.
With the source type recorded, one click separates real conversation content from passing posts.
Prerequisites
- The Media Library module enabled and access to it.
- Nothing to configure: the classification is automatic on every new capture.
- Files captured before this change only show the information after the platform operator runs the retroactive fill. Until then, they stay without the field.
Step by step
See a file's source
- Open the Media Library.
- Click a file to open its detail panel.
- Find the Source type row. It shows one of five values: Status, Group, Community, Channel or Direct chat.
- On the same panel, the Connection field tells you which connection the file came from (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and so on).
Filter by source type
- On the Library page, open the Filters popover.
- Choose the Source type selector.
- Pick the value you want — the grid then shows only files from that source.
- The same selector is available in the media picker used by other modules, so you can filter right when choosing a file to send.
Settings & options
The five possible values:
| Source type | When it appears |
|---|---|
| Status | Status posts and stories — including Instagram and Facebook stories. |
| Group | Group conversations. |
| Community | Conversations tied to a community. |
| Channel | Broadcast channels. |
| Direct chat | One-to-one conversation. It is also the value used when the connection emits none of these signals — email, API and the website widget, for example. |
Two important reading rules:
- Direct chat is the floor, not a guess. When the connection reports nothing about the kind of chat, the file is recorded as a direct chat because that is what it is: a one-to-one conversation.
- Absence means unknown. Files with no conversation at all — a manual upload, an ad creative — simply do not show the Source type row. The platform never invents an origin.
Nothing moves: folders and your existing organization stay exactly as they are. Source type is extra information about the file, not a reorganization of your library.
Use cases
- Quickly find the photo a customer deliberately sent, without wading through dozens of statuses.
- Run a deliberate cleanup: review status material in bulk before archiving or deleting it.
- Separate what came from groups and communities when putting together internal reference material.
- In the media picker, filter by Direct chat to reuse only support-conversation files.
- Understand what your library is actually made of before discussing storage quota with the operator.
Tips, limits & best practices
- Status is usually the largest slice of the library — it's the first filter to check when the Library feels too full.
- An Instagram or Facebook story is filed as Status. To know which network it came from, look at the Connection field, not the source type.
- Direct chat doesn't mean "WhatsApp": email, API and the widget also land on that value.
- A file without the Source type row is not an error — it's a file that never had a conversation.
- Combine the source filter with folders: the source says where it came from; the folder says where you filed it.
Troubleshooting
- The file doesn't show a "Source type" row: either it was captured before this change (wait for the operator's retroactive fill), or it has no conversation attached — such as a manual upload.
- Almost everything shows as "Direct chat": that's expected when the account's connections emit no status, group, community or channel signal, such as email, API and the website widget.
- An Instagram story shows as "Status": that's the correct behavior. Use the Connection field to identify the source network.
- The filter didn't return files I expected: files with no source type don't belong to any of the five values, so they don't appear when you filter by one of them.