WhatsApp to let users disable new Instant Video Messages

A few weeks ago, WhatsApp began rolling out a new Instant Video Messages feature, which, as the name suggests, lets users easily send a video message with just the press of a button. However, this feature has been bothering some users as it works with the same button to send audio messages. Now, WhatsApp is implementing an option to let users disable Instant Video Messages.

WhatsApp video messages to become optional

By default, users can tap the microphone icon in a WhatsApp chat to switch between audio and video messages. But because of this, some users were mistakenly sending video messages when they wanted to send an audio message. To avoid more situations like this, Instant Video Messages will become optional with a future WhatsApp update.

As noted by WABetaInfo and confirmed by 9to5Mac, the latest beta version of WhatsApp adds a new toggle to turn off Instant Video Messages. The option can be found within the Chat settings in WhatsApp.

Once the Instant Video Messages are off, the microphone icon switches back to its original behavior – sending audio messages when you tap and hold it. However, this doesn’t kill the feature completely because even with the toggle turned off, you can still receive Instant Video Messages from other users (which seems reasonable).

The new toggle is available to WhatsApp Beta users and should be rolled out to everyone soon. On a related note, WhatsApp is also rolling out advanced search filters for the Channels feature, which was introduced in June. With the new filters, users can find Channels based on criteria such as Most Active, New, or Popular.

WhatsApp for iPhone is available for free on the App Store and requires iOS 12 or later.

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