1. New features for WhatsApp Business and Desktop

To celebrate a year since it launched the WhatsApp Business app, WhatsApp has announced new features to help the five million businesses using it to support customers and grow their businesses. WhatsApp said in a blog post: ”To help celebrate the first year of WhatsApp Business, we’re announcing that some of our most popular features can now be used on WhatsApp web and desktop.” These features are:

• Quick Replies: These are frequent messages to answer common questions. Simply press the “/” on your keyboard to select a quick reply and send.
• Labels: Organize your contacts or chats with labels, so you can easily find them again.
• Chat List Filtering: Easily manage your chats with filters to sort by unread messages, groups or broadcast lists.

2. WhatsApp is limiting the number of forwards from 20 to 5

WhatsApp started rolling out a new update that basically limits the number of messages you can forward to five from being able to forward to 20 numbers. During an event in Jakarta, Victoria Grand, vice president for policy and communications at WhatsApp said: “We’re imposing a limit of five messages all over the world as of today.”  She said that this was to combat misinformation and rumours. WhatsApp imposed a forward limit of five in India after mob killings in 2018 were sparked by false WhatsApp messages.

3. Group calling for voice and video

Some users may not have noticed but last year WhatsApp announced an update that would allow users to make voice and video call in groups. You can make a group call with up to four people total – anytime and anywhere. Just start a one-on-one voice or video call and tap the new “add participant” button in the top right corner to add more contacts to the call. Group calls are always end-to-end encrypted, and WhatsApp designed calling to work reliably around the world in different network conditions. The feature was rolled out on the iPhone and Android versions of the app.

4. New features for Groups

Groups are becoming more and more of a popular way of using Whatsapp for many users. If you are a part of groups, you’ll be happy to know that Whatsapp has new features such as:

• Group admin setting: A group setting where only admins are able to send messages to a group.
• Group description: A short blurb found under group info.
• Admin controls: In group settings, there’s now control that allows admins to restrict who can change the group’s subject, icon, and description.
• Group catch up: When you’ve been away from a group chat, quickly catch up on messages that mention or reply to you by tapping on the @ sign.
• Participant search: Find anyone in a group.