Forwarding info to group invitation: WhatsApp’s five new features that you may have missed

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app with over 1.5 billion users globally. The Facebook-owned company also works on multiple features for its Android and iOS apps, and business app as well.

Recently, WhatsApp added couple of important features for its users on Android. These features are available for all Android users and arrive with updates for WhatsApp on Google Play Store. For those unaware, here are five WhatsApp features you may have missed.

Forwarding info

WhatsApp introduced forwarding label last year to help curb fake news on the app. It has been since improving it and the latest addition is forwarding info. You can now find out how many times your message has been forwarded by tapping on the 'info' icon. This detail will appear only if your message has been forwarded. WhatsApp's forwarding info is available only for Android users.

Consecutive voice messages

As the name suggests, this feature plays voice messages on WhatsApp consecutively. Now users need not tap play on one voice message after another. WhatsApp will automatically play the voice messages lined up. This feature is available only for Android users.

Group invitation

A new privacy feature was added to WhatsApp which helps users from being added to groups. Under the privacy menu on WhatsApp, users can change their group settings to either 'Nobody', 'Everyone' or 'My Contacts'. Accordingly, users will be added to groups. For those who choose 'Nobody' a request to join the group will be sent.

Profile picture download disabled

WhatsApp surprisingly disabled the option to download profile pictures on its Android beta app. Following an update last month, WhatsApp users could no longer download profile pictures. WhatsApp has updated this on the iOS beta app as well.

Algorithm-based Status tab

At F8 2019, Facebook announced that it would soon introduce algorithm-based Status updates on WhatsApp. At present, Status updates on WhatsApp are shown chronologically. But with the new change, Status updates of users most frequently contacted with will show up on top. This algorithm is what Facebook follows for Instagram and the main app.