WhatsApp is already introducing the ability to respond to a message with emojis, as well as share files up to 2GB, a huge jump from the previous limit of 100MB. Meta, the company behind WhatsApp, said last month that these features will come “soon” and it seems to be today. The company also announced on Thursday that it will double the maximum size of group chats.
When the reactions were first announced, Meta said that you will be able to use only a few selected ones to start with, but that support for “all emojis and skin tones” will be added in the future.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expresses a lot of emotion here.
Reactions are a useful feature, which is why other apps like Slack and Telegram have had them for a while – if you want to be able to show that a message made you laugh without shutting down group chat, now’s the way to do it. This will soon be extremely important, as WhatsApp is also expanding the maximum default size for group chats, with a ceiling of 256 to 512 (although there have reportedly been hacking decisions to break the previous limit).
The WhatsApp blog post notes that larger groups are deploying “slowly” as emoji reactions and increased file size limits become available in the current version of the app. Meta spokesman Vispi Bhopti told The Verge that the company expects the reactions to be distributed to everyone in “about a week”, but added that some users already have this feature.
Updated May 5, 19:13 ET: Added information on how long it will take to release emoji reactions.
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