5 new WhatsApp Status features

Meta has unveiled five new WhatsApp Status features, including reactions and link previews, to help boost the usage of this Stories-like ephemeral feature.

Marketing image showcasing five new WhatsApp Status features
All users will get these features “in the coming weeks” | Image: WhatsApp
  • What’s happening? Meta has unveiled 5 new WhatsApp status features, including reactions, rings and link previews.
  • Why care? With the new WhatsApp Status capabilities, you can make your ephemeral updates more exciting and engaging to your contacts.
  • What to do? Read the WhatsApp blog for details.

5 new features for WhatsApp Status

People who use WhatsApp status will soon be able to take advantage of five new features to make their ephemeral, Stories-like updates more engaging than before.

The new features include the private audience selector, voice statuses, status reactions, status profile rings and link previews. Some of them may already be available to some users, but others will roll out at a later stage. Meta said that the staggered release will take about a few weeks.

1. Private audience selector

When creating a status update, the private audience selector appears in the bottom-left corner. With it, you can adjust the privacy of your status by controlling who can view it. The most recent audience selection is saved and defaulted for your subsequent statuses. In other words, this is a per-status setting that you can change whenever you post an update to WhatsApp Status.

2. Voice status

Aside from text statuses and those with media, WhatsApp lets you record and share voice messages for up to 30 seconds as a status update. “Voice status can be used for sending more personal updates, especially if you feel more comfortable expressing yourself by talking rather than typing,” WhatsApp notes.

3. Status reactions

You’ve been able to react with emoji in chats before, and now you can assign quick emoji reactions to status updates from friends and close contacts. Simply view someone’s status and swipe up, then choose from one of eight emoji reactions. Like before, you can also reply to a status with text, voice messages, stickers and more.

4. Status profile rings

New statuses from contacts are visually distinguished with profile rings that appear throughout WhatsApp. So whether you’re chatting with someone, browsing the group participant lists or viewing someone’s contact information, you’ll know if there’s any status update from them just by looking at their profile pictures.

5. Link previews

You could share a story before by pasting its URL in your text status, but now WhatsApp also includes a preview of the link content (like with regular messages). Now contacts engaging with your status update can see a visual preview of the URL you shared without having to click it first.

What is WhatsApp Status? How does it work?

WhatsApp Status lets you share quick updates with friends and other WhatsApp Contacts. Aside from raw text, your status update may include media like photos, videos and GIFs. Everything you post to your WhatsApp Status is protected by end-to-end encryption, meaning no one—not even WhatsApp—can access your Status content. Your status updates automatically disappear after 24 hours.

How to create status updates on WhatsApp

To create a status update, open WhatsApp and touch the Status tab at the bottom. From there, hit the Camera icon to make a status update with images, videos and more. Alternatively, select the Chats tab and choose the Camera icon in the top-right corner. If you touch the pencil icon instead of the camera icon, you’ll be able to create a written update without any media.

To adjust who can see the status update you’re about to publish, hit the audience selector in the bottom-left corner. To change the privacy of all status updates going forward, touch the Privacy button in the top-left corner of the Status tab, then choose My contacts, My contacts except or Only share with.

Remember that you cannot send or receive status updates to and from people who are not saved as your contacts and don’t have a number in their address books.

You can optionally share your statuses as stories on Facebook, view contacts’ statuses, mute or unmute statuses you find distracting (find these under the Muted Updates heading), delete or forward your status update, and more.