WhatsApp is about to supercharge message reactions, surpassing even Telegram

You will soon be able to use any emoji you want to react to a message

WhatsApp has been generally slow to roll out new features. This is unlike Telegram, which keeps adding major new features to its platform every few months. Slowly but steadily though, the Facebook-owned company has been working on bridging this gap and further enhancing your messaging experience with some useful upgrades like the ability to send files up to 2GB in size, add up to 512 people in a group, and Communities. In May 2022, the company rolled out WhatsApp message reactions as a way to let you express yourself better. However, you were limited to using only six basic emoji as reactions. Less than two months later, WhatsApp is working on fixing this limitation.

As spotted by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is working on letting you use any emoji as a reaction. If you are on the latest WhatsApp beta (v2.22.15.6 or 2.22.15.7), a new + icon should appear when you bring up the reaction menu. Tapping on it will allow you to pick from one of the hundreds of Unicode emoji available on your device.

Screenshot: Moshe

Don't worry if the feature does not show up for you since it is still under development and WhatsApp has not rolled it out to all beta testers. Zuckerberg had teased the addition of new expressions to message reactions when he initially announced the feature, so it's not coming as a surprise, either.

Interestingly, Telegram offers 17 different emoji for reactions. You need to subscribe to Telegram Premium to unlock additional premium reactions. While 17 emoji should still be enough for most users, WhatsApp will have an edge over Telegram in this department once it rolls out the ability to use any emoji as a reaction.

This is not the only improvement that WhatsApp is working on for reactions. With a future update, the messaging service will make it easier to find out who reacted in which way to that one photo or video in an album without having to open it. Currently, you can only see the reaction and the user who gave it but not the media itself without opening the album.

Thanks: Moshe