Number of WhatsApp group members added to 512 from 256

WhatsApp has introduced three new features in May, leaving users excited during the debut of the updates.

WhatsApp is an internationally available American freeware, cross-platform, centralized and instant messaging service owned by Meta Platforms.

Through communication to its users on Thursday, May 5, WhatsApp announced the introduction of emoji reactions, sharing of large files and expansion of group members.

“As we announced last month with our vision for Communities on WhatsApp, we’re now building for organizations, businesses, and other close-knit groups to communicate securely and get things done on WhatsApp,” the message read in part.

Then went on “The feedback we’ve received so far has been very positive and we can’t wait to get many new features into people’s hands.”

Through the introduction of emoji reactions, the messaging platform says chats are now fun and fast. Through the reactions, there will be a reduced overload in groups.

“We’ll continue improving them by adding an even broader range of expressions in the future,” the platform promised its users.

Moreover, WhatsApp can now allow for sharing of larger files, up to 2GB, at the same time.

Previously, the platform had a limit of 100MB (sharing files). The increment is aimed at helping in 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,”.

On the other hand, WhatsApp now wants to slowly roll out a feature enabling a group to have up to 512 participants. This is up from the current 256 members.

“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,” WhatsApp added.