Sending media as documents on WhatsApp will soon be no more

Sending a video or picture in high-quality via WhatsApp has always had a workaround– which means sending the media as a document. This guarantees the receiver gets the content in the highest possible resolution. By default, WhatsApp compresses media content to save on data and storage resources. A future version of WhatsApp will give more control over the amount of compression it applies to sent images and videos.

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WABetaInfo reports that these two features are currently in development for the Android app, and should eventually present three quality options when sending images and video. The options are “Auto,” “Best quality,” or “Data saver.”

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If it releases in this form, it could let you force media to be more compressed if you’re worried about internet speeds or data caps, or lower the amount of compression to ensure images or video are sent in their highest possible quality. Currently, avoiding WhatsApp’s compression involves changing a file’s extension to send it as a document rather than an image or video (The Next Web has a guide on how to do so here).

There’s currently no word on when the feature may see an official release, and WABetaInfo’s report relates specifically to the Android beta app and not iOS. But given the feature parity between WhatsApp’s apps, development on iOS is unlikely to be too far behind.

Image and video quality settings join a growing list of unreleased WhatsApp features unearthed by WABetaInfo. The most anticipated of these is multi-device support, which will allow the service to be usable across multiple devices.