You can finally send higher quality images via WhatsApp
Twelve instead of two megapixels: WhatsApp will receive an HD option for photos in the coming weeks.
Do you know this? You exchange a few pictures via WhatsApp after a holiday together. It's quick, but the quality is miserable - the images are compressed to around two megapixels. Since most smartphones today take pictures with twelve megapixels or even more, this resolution is no longer up to date.
Meta has apparently also come to this conclusion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced via Instagram: You can now also send pictures in "HD". The feature will be rolled out worldwide for iOS and Android over the next few weeks. Videos in better quality will follow soon.
Twelve megapixels, no original files
Beta screenshots from WABetaInfo show what this will look like: When you send a photo, there is a new "HD" icon in the editing options. There you can select whether you want to send the image in low or high resolution. What exactly HD means does not seem to be standardised. Sometimes it is 4096 pixels on the long side (which corresponds to around twelve megapixels in 4:3 format), sometimes even more, as users report.
Source: WhatsApp
A small symbol indicates the higher quality for recipients in the chat history. You will probably have to reactivate the option for each image. By default, images are still sent in the lower resolution. This is to prevent unnecessary data volume, both on Meta's servers and on your smartphone.
Even in the higher resolution, images are probably not sent as original files, but are additionally compressed by WhatsApp. If you want to prevent this, it is therefore better to transfer photos via AirDrop or NearbyShare in future if both devices have the same operating system. There are free cross-system services such as WeTransfer. WhatsApp already has a diversion for sending pictures as originals: If you export them from your gallery as a file and save them locally, you can then attach them to a message as a "document".
Caption: Samuel Buchmann
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