WhatsApp’s Rolling Out Reactions & More Improvements

Emoji reactions have finally started appearing for all WhatsApp users. Now the app doesn’t lag behind Telegram, Slack, iMessage, and its own family member, Instagram. At the same time, WhatsApp is extending the file-sharing limit from 100MB to 2GB and the maximal number of group chat members from 256 to 512. Read on for details. 

Reactions Everywhere

To enable WhatsApp reactions, you need to update the app to the latest version. Mark Zuckerberg announced the release of the feature on May 5, so it’s probably already available for all devices worldwide. Due to this feature, you can now instantly react to incoming messages in individual and group chats instead of typing your thoughts and emotions in text. 

The initial set of quick reactions includes like, laugh, love, sadness, thanks, and surprise. As the latest beta version suggests, one of the upcoming updates may also introduce an option to select from a wider range of emotions or adjust a stack that works best for you. If you want to react to a message, you need to long-tap on this text bubble and tap on the emoji that matches your emotion. You can also change and remove your reactions by long-tapping on a message bubble and tapping a new reaction or the same reaction to remove it. 

Other notable improvements include:

• a new file sharing limit of 2GB, which works only for documents and not for media files (for them the limit is still just 16MB). 

• permission to add up to 512 members to a group chat.

• communities – an option to merge several group chats into a larger community.

That’s It! 

Despite introducing new features and limits in the slowest tempo on the market, WhatsApp remains the most preferred messaging solution worldwide. Did the latest updates improve your experience with the app? Tell us about it in the comments and share the news with friends so that they update too.