WhatsApp is rolling out new features including message reactions, improved file sharing and increased limit for groups. Emoji reactions are now available on the latest version of the app. Users can now react to messages with emojis.
“Reactions are fun, fast, and they reduce overload in groups too. We’ll continue improving them by adding an even broader range of expressions in the future,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
Separately, users can now send files of up to 2GB in size at a time within the platform, protected by end-to-end encryption. This is an increase from the previous limit of 100MB.
“We recommend using WiFi for larger files and we’ll display a counter while uploading or downloading to let you know how long your transfer will take,” it said. It is also slowly rolling out the ability to add up to 512 people to a group. “One of the top requests we’ve consistently received is the option to add more people to a chat,” it said.
Earlier this week, the platform also rolled out the ability to add up to 32 people to voice calls. These features were announced last month by the messaging platform alongside Communities. Communities will enable users to bring separate groups under one “umbrella” wherein they will be able to receive updates sent to the entire community and organise smaller discussion groups on what matters to them.