Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp has added a quicker way for users to send short videos to their friends.
The new feature enables users to send up to a 60-second-long video message to their contact with just a tap of a button. With this feature, users can record and share short personal videos directly in the chat just like sending a voice message.
Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg shared a short clip of the feature in action, showing the circular videos sent through the feature on his Facebook post on Thursday.
Also, WhatsApp in a blog post stated that video messages can be up to 60 seconds in length and will automatically play or mute when a recipient opens a chat. That’s in contrast to voice messages, which don’t auto-play and can be as long as you want. You can send a video message by tapping the existing voice message icon to put it into video mode.
WhatsApp has long offered the option of sending videos, but the new video message feature removes a couple of steps in the process, making it quicker and more immediate. If they work the same way as voice messages, which exist solely within WhatsApp, video messages should also avoid cluttering up your phone’s camera roll with short single-use clips.
The video message feature has been rolling out on WhatsApp on both iOS and Android since at least last month, and WhatsApp’s blog post says the feature will be available to “everyone in the coming weeks.”
