What you need to know
- WhatsApp now allows up to 512 people in a single group chat.
- Support for file transfers of up to 2GB in size has been added.
- WhatsApp had already added support for message reactions today.
WhatsApp has announced that people can now have put to 512 people in a single group chat — assuming they can find that many people they want to talk to!
The new announcement was made via the WhatsApp blog, with the outfit also confirming that message reactions are also now live.
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. 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.
The same blog post also confirmed that people can now send files of up to 2GB in size for the first time, an increase on the previous limit of a rather paltry 100MB.
In addition, 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. We recommend using WiFi for larger files and we'll display a counter while uploading or downloading to let you know how long your transfer will take.
WhatsApp was already one of the best iPhone apps at what it did and these changes won't hurt its chances of finding a home on Home screens around the world, either.
No new app update is required for these changes to kick in. Those who don't already have WhatsApp installed can grab it from the (opens in new tab) App Store now.
