WhatsApp now supports sharing Live Photos. The feature began rolling out a few days ago, and Meta officially confirmed its release in an announcement on September 29.
With this improvement, you can directly share Live Photos with your friends over WhatsApp without converting them into GIFs or videos first.
Live Photo sharing comes to WhatsApp on iPhone
iPhones can capture Live Photos, which bundle a short video and sound 1.5 seconds before and after you press the shutter button. It helps add additional context to your pictures. The best part is that Live Photos appear as regular pictures in your gallery — they only play the short clip when you long-press on them.
When you share a Live Photo, iOS only shares the regular image and not the motion, unless the platform specifically supports it. WhatsApp is now adding support for Live Photos (and Motion Photos on Android) to add more life to the photos you share.
Like in the Photos app, a Live Photo appears as a regular image in a WhatsApp chat, with a quick animation to indicate it’s a Live Photo. A small icon in the top-left corner reinforces this, and when you open it and tap the button, the photo plays its animated content.
Smarter group search on WhatsApp
If you’re part of numerous groups, it can be hard to remember which ones your friends are in. WhatsApp is enhancing its search feature to fix this. Now, when you search for a contact, all the group chats they’re part of will also show up in the results.
Other improvements rolling out to WhatsApp include using Meta AI for creating custom video call backgrounds and chat themes. There are also fun new sticker packs to add more spice to your conversations.
