After a month of testing, WhatsApp switched on three changes for everyone in the first week of May 2022. Files of up to 2 GB can now be sent in a chat, up from a 100 MB limit that dated from the app's early days; messages can be answered with an emoji reaction instead of a reply; and groups can grow to 512 members, double the previous 256.
2 GB files: what it is for
The new limit means a full-length video, a folder of RAW photos zipped up, or a PDF scan of an entire land record can go through WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted, without a Google Drive link. Files are sent as documents, so nothing is compressed. WhatsApp suggests using Wi-Fi for large transfers, and in Bangladesh that is not a suggestion but a warning: a 2 GB file sent over a mobile pack that costs Tk 20 per GB is Tk 40 each way, and the receiver pays too. On Android, turn off auto-download for documents on mobile data (Settings, Storage and data, Media auto-download) so a colleague's 1.5 GB video does not eat your pack while you sleep.
Reactions
Long-press any message and pick one of six emoji: thumbs up, heart, laughing, surprised, crying or folded hands. Reactions are the quiet answer to a problem every Bangladeshi family group has, where a single photo of a wedding produces forty "wow" replies and forty notifications. A reaction shows under the message and, by default, sends only a muted notification. The feature reached a subset of users first and everyone within a week, on both Android and iOS. More emoji were promised later.
512-person groups
The larger cap is rolling out gradually. It matters for the way WhatsApp is actually used here: batch groups of an entire school year, union-level farmers' groups run by agricultural extension officers, and the neighbourhood groups that coordinated relief during the 2020 floods, all of which hit 256 regularly. Admins should remember that in a group this size the "only admins can send messages" setting is the difference between a notice board and noise.
All three features work inside WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption, which is the reason the Meta-owned app has become the default for anything sensitive. The changes come alongside the "Communities" structure Meta previewed in April, which groups related groups under one umbrella.
