WhatsApp’s biggest new feature: 8 things to know

On the occasion of its eighth birthday on February 24, popular instant messaging service WhatsApp rolled out a new ‘Status’ feature for all users. It lets users share images and videos as statues with their friends on WhatsApp, instead of just text-based statuses. Want to know more?

Here are a few things about WhatsApp’s latest feature that you should know about.

WhatsApp’s UI on Android now has four tabs. These are for messages, calls and the third one is solely dedicated to your status. This is where you go and set your status by clicking on the ‘+’ icon. The last tab is for photos.

You can click pictures and send to your contacts from within WhatsApp itself.

While earlier you could only use text in your status messages on WhatsApp, now you can do a lot more. The messaging platform now supports photos, videos and GIFs as status updates. You can either select the content saved on your phone’s gallery or click pictures and videos from within the app itself, then using it as a status.

o you love doodling on your photos? Or sending emojis to your friends during conversations? WhatsApp’s new status feature is all you need. You can add emojis, texts and doodles on your photos easily, and even change their size and colour if you want to. So if you think that the heart-eye emoji would look better pink, you can now change it.

We have always liked privacy settings on WhatsApp and the instant messaging platform has expanded them to the new status feature as well. You have the option of deciding who gets to see your status updates. There are three options to choose from – My contacts, My contacts except, and Only share with. So if you want certain people to not see your status, select option two and specify them. On the other hand, if you want only a few people to see your status updates, select the last option.

It is worth noting that your status updates will disappear on their own after 24 hours. However, you can post as many status updates as you like.
Did you accidentally post a picture of yourself you weren’t supposed to? Relax, as you can easily delete it. Just click on the ‘...’ sign right next to your status and you’ll be taken to the page where all your updates appear. Just long press the status you want to delete and tap the trash icon.