New WhatsApp features launching this year: Message Reactions, Communities, Large file sharing up to 2GB, and more

WhatsApp has revealed a bunch of new features coming to its platform later this year. The company has confirmed that it will soon allow its users to send files larger than 100MB. Additionally, WhatsApp will allow users to react to messages using emojis, combine groups, and organise calls with more than 8 members, among other things. All these features are likely to improve the overall experience of the WhatsApp users. These features are rolling out in the coming weeks, the company has said. Here are the details:

New WhatsApp features launching this year

WhatsApp has announced five features that will be rolling out this year. The list includes

  • Communities
  • Message Reactions
  • Admin Delete
  • Large file sharing
  • Updated voice calls

1. Communities

WhatsApp communities

Communities is a feature that will allow users to combine several relevant groups under one umbrella. Aimed at bringing people of the same interest together, communities will ensure any important message pertaining to a certain topic is communicated to hundreds of people at the same time. This is why the admins and creators of a community will have powerful new tools at their disposal such as ‘announcement messages’ to broadcast messages to the groups in a community. Furthermore, WhatsApp has assured the messages sent and received in a Community will be end-to-end encrypted just like individual and group chats. That being said, ‘Communities’ is said to have its own dedicated tab in the app and will roll out later this year.

2. Message Reactions

Message Reactions is one of the most requested features finally coming to WhatsApp. Indicated by small-sized emojis at the bottom corner of a message, this will allow users to react to any message in the chat using one of the five default emojis. These five emojis include heart, thumbs up, laughing, open mouth, crying and folded hands.

3. Admin Delete

WhatsApp five new features incoming

To have more control over a group chat, admins will now have the ability to delete any unwanted or problematic message sent in the group. A message deletion by an admin will also be indicated in the group chat.

4. Larger File sharing

WhatsApp is finally bumping up the maximum file sharing size from 100MB to 2GB when sharing an attachment as a doc. Users will now no longer have to reside in other apps and websites to share large-sized media such as videos, PDFs etc.

5. Updated Voice Calls

Lastly, WhatsApp has also reworked its group voice calling feature. The messaging giant will soon allow 32 members at the same time to join a group call. At present, that number is limited to just 8 members.