WhatsApp

Billions of messages are sent over the WhatsApp chat platform every day. One of the reasons for the service's massive popularity is that it lets users send and receive as many media-rich messages as they want, which – as long as they've limited WhatsApp's use of their cellular data plan – costs them next to nothing. That's great news for senders, but one of the drawbacks of receiving...

WhatsApp has made it easier to organize your conversations with the global rollout of custom chat lists. This new feature expands on the chat filters introduced earlier this year, and offers a more personalized way to manage your messaging. To create a custom list, tap the plus (+) icon in the filter bar at the top of the Chats tab. You can add both individual contacts and group chats to...

Meta's WhatsApp chat platform offers more than just the ability to send messages. It also provides various text formatting options to help you emphasize your messages. Whether you want to make your text bold, italicize it, strikethrough, or change the font, WhatsApp has you covered. Here's a quick guide on how to use these text formatting features to enhance your chatting experience,...

WhatsApp has introduced a custom sticker creation tool for iPhone users running iOS 17 or later. Keep reading to learn how to use it. In the world of instant messaging, stickers offer a dynamic and playful way to express your emotions and thoughts. But instead of using standardized stickers from an existing stock, wouldn't it be better if you could create your own? WhatsApp on iPhone has...

WhatsApp has rolled out a new option that lets users on iPhone share photos and video over the messaging platform in their original quality. Here's how it works and how to use it. Previously, WhatsApp users could only send media in high resolution or "HD quality." But while that is a welcome improvement that addressing the service's low quality media sharing limitation, it still involves...

WhatsApp has rolled out a new option that lets users send photos and video over the messaging platform in high resolution. Keep reading to learn how it's done. WhatsApp has released an update allowing iPhone and Android users to send photos and videos in high resolution, finally addressing the service's low quality media sharing limitation. Called "HD quality," the option means users can...

Unsolicited phone calls are a regular annoyance and even a cause of stress for many smartphone users these days. Thankfully, iOS includes an option to automatically silence calls to your iPhone from unknown numbers, and now you can do the same for calls you receive via WhatsApp, too. WhatsApp announced a new Silence Unknown Callers feature for the encrypted messaging platform in June 2023....

WhatsApp in May 2023 introduced a new Chat Lock feature that allows you to secure select conversations in your inbox behind a passcode, fingerprint, or Face ID authentication. Keep reading to learn how it's done. Millions of users rely on WhatsApp as a means of privately and securely communicating with others, which is why the company's developers are continually seeking new ways to improve...

WhatsApp is rolling out a new ability for users to edit messages after they have been sent over the popular Meta-owned encrypted chat platform. Keep reading to learn how it works on iPhone and Android. It's been a long time coming, but WhatsApp has finally brought its much-anticipated sent-message editing feature to the chat service. When Apple released iOS 16, it introduced the ability...

Previously, WhatsApp has allowed users of the encrypted messaging platform to link up to four devices to their account, but only one of those devices could be a smartphone. Happily, that's now changed, and WhatsApp has introduced the ability to use the same account on multiple phones. So now you can link another phone as one of up to four additional devices, the same as when you link with...

In a new privacy-centric update released in August 2022, WhatsApp has added the ability for users to adjust the visibility of their "Last Seen" status on a contact-by-contact basis. Keep reading to learn how it's done. As regular WhatsApp users will know, the "Last Seen" status of a contact you're in conversation with sits atop the conversation thread, informing you when that contact last...

After a long wait, Meta this week announced the ability to transfer WhatsApp chat history, photos, videos, and voice messages from Android to iPhone while maintaining end-to-end encryption. The system uses Apple's Move to iOS app for Android phones, and can be initiated during the setup process for a new (or factory reset) iPhone. This article runs through the steps involved in transferring...

WhatsApp in 2020 launched disappearing messages on its end-to-end encrypted chat platform as a way of doubling down on user privacy. If you want to have control over how long a message lasts in WhatsApp, read on to learn how it works. When you sit down and have a face-to-face conversation with someone, usually you're reasonably confident that your conversation isn't being recorded and stored ...

For a long time now, WhatsApp has included a feature that shows when a user was last online or last active on the messaging platform, which can be either helpful or a hindrance, depending on your personal or business situation. As regular WhatsApp users will know, the "Last Seen" status of a contact sits atop the conversation thread, informing you when that contact last opened the app and...

Despite strong competition from the likes of Telegram and Signal, WhatsApp remains the most popular mobile messaging platform by a mile, connecting over a billion active users around the world every day. As a smartphone app, WhatsApp messages are principally exchanged between iPhones and Android phones, but WhatsApp is known to be developing an iPad app that would increase the number of...

WhatsApp has rolled out multi-device support to all users on iOS and Android, allowing WhatsApp to be used on up to four linked devices without users needing to be connected via a smartphone. Previously, the WhatsApp mobile app was required to authenticate an account used on another device, such as a computer, and used a QR code to link a user account to a web browser or desktop app. While...

WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted backups are now rolling out for iPhone users, Facebook has announced. Until now, WhatsApp let users back up their chat history to ‌‌iCloud‌‌, but the messages and media contained in the backups weren't protected by WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption while in ‌‌Apple's cloud servers‌. End-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're...

If you're a heavy WhatsApp user and your iPhone is running low on storage, it may be that all the videos, voice messages and photos stored in the app are taking up a hefty amount of space on your device. Fortunately, WhatsApp features a built-in media management tool that can help you identify, select, and bulk delete GIFs, photos, and videos that may be filling up your phone. The tool...

Despite strong competition from the likes of Telegram and Signal, WhatsApp remains the most popular messaging platform by a mile. At the last count in 2020, the Facebook-owned service had more than 2 billion WhatsApp users around the globe and rising. If you consider that it had 1.5 billion users in 2018 and 1 billion in 2016, then the number of active WhatsApp accounts has been increasing...

Over 100 million new users joined encrypted messaging app Telegram in January 2021. The stunning growth in the platform's user base was linked to an exodus from rival chat app WhatsApp, which concerned many of its users with a confusing privacy policy update that seemed to imply that more of their data would be shared with Facebook. WhatsApp tried to deal with the fallout by clarifying that...

In WhatsApp, you can set a custom alert tone for messages and calls from a specific person in your contacts, just like you can in the Contacts app on iPhone. Setting a special alert tone for a WhatsApp contact enables you to recognize when that particular person is calling you or has sent you a message, without you even having to look at your phone's screen. To know instantly when someone...

Facebook's free WhatsApp instant messaging app uses end-to-end encryption so that messages exchanged over the platform can only be read by the intended recipient. If you use WhatsApp for important conversations and you want to further ensure your privacy, you can prevent WhatsApp messages from showing previews on your iPhone. When you receive a WhatsApp message on your iPhone, the...

WhatsApp on iPhone includes an option to lock the app with your device's Face ID or Touch ID authentication. This article explains how to enable the feature. Locking WhatsApp is a neat way of doubling the security and privacy of your messages, and especially useful if your iPhone isn't set up to automatically lock after a few minutes of idle time, because even you leave your iPhone unlocked,...

WhatsApp has been updated to allow users to create group video chats with up to 50 people on the social platform, thanks to an integration with Facebook's recently announced Messenger Rooms feature. Facebook unveiled Messenger Rooms as an alternative to Zoom and Group FaceTime in April, releasing it to a small trial group of users. Facebook said part of its plan was to extend the capability to ...

WhatsApp has upgraded its end-to-end encrypted video call feature, which now allows groups of up to eight participants to chat together, up from the previous limit of four. WhatsApp has been gradually developing its group video call capabilities through beta builds, as rival video call services like Zoom, FaceTime and Skype have exploded in popularity amid the ongoing stay-at-home measures....

WhatsApp messenger recently rolled out its long-awaited Dark Mode theme for iPhone, which is good news for anyone who uses the chat app in bed when they just can't sleep. With Dark Mode enabled, users will benefit from no more bright white splash screen blinding them upon opening WhatsApp, a less harsh app interface, new dark themes for chat threads, and potentially less battery drain....

WhatsApp has released an update allowing iPhone and Android users to send photos over the messaging platform in high resolution, finally addressing the service's low quality image sharing limitation. Previously, WhatsApp users sending photos would see the images automatically compressed and the resolution reduced to 920 x 1280 to save storage space and keep image-sharing fast over low...

WhatsApp today introduced Channels, a feed-style one-way broadcast service coming to the popular chat platform where admins can send text, photos, videos, stickers, and polls to followers. WhatsApp calls Channels "a simple, reliable, and private way to receive important updates from people and organizations," and cites hobbies, sports teams, and updates from local authorities as examples. ...

WhatsApp appears to have a username feature in the works that could potentially provide people on the messaging service with an additional layer of privacy. As things stand, if someone wants to add you as a WhatsApp contact, you're required to share your phone number with them, even if they add you via the QR code method. That's how it's always worked in WhatsApp, but it looks as if...

WhatsApp is rolling out a new Chat Lock feature that allows users to secure select conversations in their inbox behind a passcode, fingerprint, or Face ID authentication, parent company Meta has announced. In a post on its news page, Meta explained that locked conversations are removed from the regular chat list and hidden in a password-protected folder. Notification previews for any locked...

WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will allow users to transfer their chat history to another iPhone without using iCloud. Currently, WhatsApp only lets ‌iPhone‌ users migrate their chat history and media to ‌‌another ‌iPhone‌ if they have created a Chat Backup which is uploaded to ‌iCloud‌. With the new feature, called "Transfer Chats to ‌iPhone‌," users need only download...

WhatsApp has announced a new option for disappearing messages conversations that lets recipients keep individual messages if the sender approves the request. "Keep in Chat" enables users to long press a disappearing message and ask to keep it, which sends a notification to the sender: "Someone kept your message so they can refer back to it." The sender can then either allow the save to go...

WhatsApp, Signal, and other messaging services have penned an open letter to the British government appealing for it to urgently rethink the Online Safety Bill (OSB), a piece of legislation that would allow regulators to ask the platforms to monitor users in order to identify child abuse images. Under the bill, the government could force chat services to apply content moderation policies...

WhatsApp parent company Meta has announced two new updates related to WhatsApp groups, including a new privacy control tool for admins and a way for users to find out which groups they have in common. For group admins, WhatsApp now includes a Pending participants tool that gives them the ability to decide who can join the group. When an admin chooses to share their group's invite link or ...

WhatsApp would exit the U.K. market rather than be in thrall to the government's proposed Online Safety Bill if it undermined the app's end-to-end encryption, the platform's chief has said (via BBC News). End-to-end encryption ensures that only the user and the person they are communicating with can read or listen to what is sent, and nobody in between, not even Meta/Facebook, can gain...

WhatsApp is testing a new feature that will allow group chat memberships on the encrypted platform to expire after a set period of time. A large part of what makes the Meta-owned messaging service so popular is its continual development of new group chat features, and the latest one aims to be a solution to the common problem of so-called "zombie groups." The term refers to groups that...

WhatsApp is actively working on an ability for iPhone users to edit messages after they have been sent over the popular Meta-owned encrypted chat platform. With iOS 16, Apple introduced the ability to edit or unsend recently sent iMessages. Telegram also offers a similar edit-after-sending feature. Now it looks like WhatsApp will be next. To edit a sent message, users will need to tap and ...

WhatsApp Messenger is rolling out picture-in-picture support in its latest app update, allowing users to continue their video call in a small window while doing something else on their iPhone. Up until now, if you needed to do something on your phone while on a WhatsApp video call, you had to swipe out of WhatsApp, which paused the video for the person you were speaking with. Once the new ...

WhatsApp has announced some new features for Status Updates, which allow users to share ephemeral updates with friends and close contacts on the popular encrypted chat platform. First up is Private Audience Selector, which allows users to choose who views their status updates. This isn't technically new, since users are already able to control who sees their status updates when sharing them, ...

WhatsApp has been working on an updated Mac app that features native Apple silicon support since the summer, and a beta version of the app is now available to all WhatsApp users who want to try it out. As noted by WABetaInfo, the Mac app with native Apple Silicon support can be downloaded from the WhatsApp website, with the download available directly by clicking here. The beta was...

WhatsApp is completing the rollout of a new feature that lets you create a private chat thread with yourself within the app that can be used to store personal notes and media. Literally called "Message Yourself," the feature is designed to be used as a convenient place to keep things like reminders, notes, links, audio clips, photos, and video. You can also talk to yourself, but bear in mind ...

WhatsApp has rolled out a new group chat feature that lets you undo the "Delete for Me" action, to avoid potentially embarrassing scenarios where you accidentally delete a message only for yourself instead of removing it from the conversation for everyone. Called "Accidental Delete," the new feature adds a five-second window to let users reverse an unintentional Delete for Me action and...

Popular Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp today announced several improvements to video and audio calling, putting it on par with other platforms that support video calls. WhatsApp video calls on mobile devices now support up to 32 people, four times more than the previous eight person limit. Audio calls have supported 32 people for some time, but now video calls will as well. Apple's own Fac...

Avatars are officially coming to WhatsApp. The customizable, expressive characters, which are already available on Facebook and Instagram, can now be used as profile pictures on the messaging service or sent in the form of one of 36 custom stickers. The process of customizing the cartoony virtual characters is similar to Apple's Memoji, except WhatsApp's avatars also include bodies for...

Popular Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp received a handful of new feature additions today, along with the global rollout of its new Communities feature. Communities is designed to allow people to bring together separate groups under a single umbrella, providing users with a way to receive updates that are sent to an entire community, and then organize smaller discussion groups on important ...

WhatsApp is currently experiencing a global outage on iPhone and Android, causing users to be unable to send messages and more, according to user reports on Twitter and Downdetector. In a statement to The Verge, a WhatsApp spokesperson said WhatsApp is "working to restore WhatsApp for everyone as quickly as possible." WhatsApp users are presented with a "Connecting" message when in the app. ...