WhatsApp is rolling out emoji reactions for messages and the ability to share files up to 2GB, a huge jump from the current 100MB limit. WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms said last month that these features would come soon.
“We’re excited to share that emoji reactions are now available on the latest version of the app,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
“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.”
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday announced the launch of the emoji reactions feature. Meta first teased the feature in mid-April alongside several other features, including Communities, which is scheduled to arrive soon.
When WhatsApp first announced the message reactions feature, it said users would only be able to use a select few to begin out. It added that support for all emojis and skin-tones would be added in the future.
Message reactions are a useful feature and apps such as Telegram and Slack have had it for a while.
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The company announced on Thursday that it would also double the maximum size of group chats, with the ceiling going up to 512 from 256 users at present.
“One of the top requests we’ve consistently received is the option to add more people to a chat, so now we’re slowly rolling out the ability to add up to 512 people to a group,” WhatsApp said.
“Building private, safe, and secure communities takes work and we think this series of improvements will help people and groups stay close to one another.”
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On the higher file-share limit, 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 among small businesses and school groups.”