Oliver Haslam·

WhatsApp Reworks Groups, Adds Communities For Schools, Local Clubs, More

After a period of beta testing, WhatsApp has now made Communities available to everyone while also reworking the way that groups work. Communities are essentially a collection of groups and can be managed by an administrator.

WhatsApp announced communities via a blog post, saying that they are designed for schools and other groups of people that need an overarching structure but multiple groups beneath.

Here’s where Communities comes in. Communities on WhatsApp will enable people to bring together separate groups under one umbrella with a structure that works for them. That way people can receive updates sent to the entire Community and easily organize smaller discussion groups on what matters to them. Communities will also contain powerful new tools for admins, including announcement messages that are sent to everyone and control over which groups can be included.

Alongside the arrival of Communities, WhatsApp has also given the existing groups feature a rework. Now, groups can transfer files up to 2GB in size while admins can also delete messages. Reactions can also be left on messages to remove the need to clutter the whole group chat.

  • Reactions – Emoji reactions are coming to WhatsApp so people can quickly share their opinion without flooding chats with new messages.
  • Admin Delete – Group admins will be able to remove errant or problematic messages from everyone’s chats.
  • File Sharing – We’re increasing file sharing to support files up to 2 gigabytes so people can easily collaborate on projects.
  • Larger Voice Calls – We’ll introduce one-tap voice calling for up to 32 people with all new design for those times when talking live is better than chatting.

All of this should make WhatsApp more useful for larger groups of people who will no longer need to put everyone into one WhatsApp group. Now, those groups can become a Community with smaller groups within them.

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