The change follows WhatsApp’s recent expansion of emoji reactions
WhatsApp was late to the party for showing message reactions in chats — launching it only a couple of months ago — with Telegram delivering the feature last December. Meanwhile, Instagram has supported emoji reactions for much longer. Despite being so tardy here, WhatsApp’s recent expansion of emoji options for reactions showed us that the developers were starting to take this pretty seriously. Now the Meta-owned entity is testing some new previews for message reactions right within the chat list.
Testers running a recent WhatsApp beta (WABetaInfo suggests most are seeing it on v2.22.16.6, though it’s also appearing for some on v2.22.16.5) now receive info about recent reactions in the chat overview. Being on either beta version doesn’t guarantee its availability as it appears to be a phased rollout. As you can see in the screenshot below, individual or group chats showing a preview of the most recent message reaction from the chat list.
Oddly enough, as WABetaInfo notes, the feature cannot be disabled even if you turn off reaction notifications from the app’s settings. While message reaction previews are only available for a handful of WhatsApp beta testers, it’s likely we’ll see them spread more widely over the next few weeks — though it’s anybody’s guess as to how long it would take to appear on the stable version of WhatsApp.
If you’re a part of the WhatsApp beta via the Google Play beta program, you can check to see if you’ve already got access to this new interface. But as we’ve outlined above, being a beta tester doesn’t guarantee access to the feature.
Not hindered by the slow start for message reactions on WhatsApp, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week announced the expansion of emoji options for message reactions across Android, iOS, and web versions of the popular IM app.
