Messenger to Support HD Photos, Shared Albums, and More

Meta’s Messenger is rolling out a new set of features to better support photos and media. The conversational app will now support HD photos, the ability to create shared albums, larger file sharing, and more.

Via a blog post,  Loredana Crisan, Head of Messenger, shared the news that Messenger will support the ability for users to send “clearer, crisper” HD photos. As users attempt to send a photo through the chat composer, you can now turn the HD toggle on and tap ‘Send.’ Additionally, you can select multiple photos to send in HD.

Crisan goes on to explain that Shared Album support is also arriving. Whether it’s to share a collection of photos taken on a trip or from a work function, Shared Albums can be a place where users can look back and flip through these photos. To create a new album within a group chat, you must select the photos you wish to add via the chat composer. Select the ‘Create Album’ option to add the photos. You can then tap the album and hit the three-dot menu to edit and rename the album.

To better support larger files, Meta is now increasing the file limit size in Messenger. Moving forward, users can send files up to 100MB. This includes Word docs, PDFs, Excel, and all “major” file types, according to Crisan.

On top of adding new support for sharing media, Messenger is also adding a new way to add contacts and connections. Like Instagram, Messenger now supports QR codes to share with other users. Rather than having to type someone’s name or number to add them to Messenger, the QR code makes the process more streamlined. To start a Messenger thread with a new contact, head to ‘Settings’ and tap the QR code icon. Another user can then scan it with their phone’s camera.

Each new feature should be rolling out shortly to users.