After being quiet for months, Meta just rolled out a huge update to its Messenger app, focused on sharing and photos — something that’s been much needed.
For some time, sharing on Meta’s Messenger app has been hampered by quality issues. Photos come through scrambled in such a way that they look like they were taken on a flip phone from 2008.
The most significant update is the ability to send HD photos in Messenger chats. According to Meta, this update is supposed to allow for “clearer, crisper photos” in your conversations.
Select an image in the chat composer and toggle on the HD option before hitting send. Multiple images can be selected this way and set to send in HD. It’s an extra step, but it will ensure clearer photos are shared each time.
It’s been quite a while since shared albums on Facebook were all the rage, and Meta is bringing that feature to Messenger.
To create a shared album, you select multiple photos in the chat composer and then tap Create Album. According to Meta, you can also hold down on a photo and then tap Create Album when it pops up. Otherwise, you can select the photos and add them to an existing album.
Once an album is created in a chat, anyone in the group can view, add, delete and download media from that album.
While not available yet, Meta indicated that you will be able to view the album at a later time but tapping the group chat and then hitting Media. Again, this feature is coming but is not available as of this writing.
QR Code Connections and 100 MB File Sharing
The new update allows users to add contacts without typing their number or name. Instead, you can go into Settings and tap the QR code icon to allow them to scan your code. You can also send them a link by tapping Share.
Finally, the other big part of this update is the new ability to send files up to 100 MB. Meta says all major file formats, including Word Docs, PDFs and Excel files, are supported.
Simply tap the + button in a chat and select the file or files you want to send.
Gmail, for example, still only allows for 25 MB files over email, so anything that lets users send a large file without a third party or link is a pretty useful feature.
