We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info
A huge upgrade has just been rolled out to WhatsApp and it’s one of the biggest the Meta-owned firm has ever released. This mammoth change affects the number of people you can now add to a Group Chat with WhatsApp increasing things by twice the usual amount.
This means users can now include 512 contacts when creating a Group Chat rather than the previous 256. According to the team at the messaging service, this boost has been added due to feedback from fans of the popular app.
To check if your WhatsApp has been upgraded, simply start a new Group Chat and then check the “Add Participants” setting at the top of the screen. If you see 0/512 you know that you have an up-to-date version of the app. If you’re still seeing 256 participants then make sure you have updated WhatsApp via the Android and Apple App stores – it’s also worth noting that the chat firm is slowly rolling this upgrade out across the world so some users may get it before others.
Along with that Group Chat upgrade, WhatsApp also recently added two more features to its platform including being able to send bigger files.
Until recently, users could only attach files that were a 100MB in size but that’s now been boosted to a more generous 2GB.
This means it will now be much easier to send videos and large files across the WhatsApp network.
Explaining more, WhatsApp said: “You can now send files within WhatsApp up to 2GB in size at a time, protected by end-to-end encryption. This is an increase from the previous limit of 100MB and we think will be helpful for collaboration.”
Finally, WhatsApp has now added reactions. This change is almost identical to other chat services such as Apple’s iMessage with users now able to quickly overlay emojis on each chat bubble.
That means you can add quick thumbs up or love heart to a message rather than typing a reply.
“We’re excited to share that emoji reactions are now available on the latest version of the app,” the firm added. “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.
To add a reaction simply tap and hold on a message. You’ll then see six reactions appear on the screen including a thumbs up, love heart, laughing face, shocked face, sad face and hands preying.
Tap the correct reaction for the chat and it will then appear on the message.
If you want to change the emoji or delete it, simply tap and hold the same message again and then make your edits.
See today’s front and back pages, download the newspaper, order back issues and use the historic Daily Express newspaper archive.
