WhatsApp has something new: emoji reactions. This allows you to quickly respond to an app via an emoticon. This is how the emoji responses in WhatsApp work.
Send Emoji Reaction in WhatsApp
In many chat apps it was already possible to respond quickly with an emoji. Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Telegram, for example, already had that option. It’s a handy way to quickly show a person that you’ve read a message.
This is how you send an emoji response (WhatsApp calls them response notifications):
- Open a chat conversation in WhatsApp;
- Press and hold the message you want to reply to;
- Select one of the six emojis;
- Your emoji response will appear below the message you selected earlier.
You can choose from six emojis: thumbs up, heart, smiling face, surprised face, sad face and folded hands. You can also place that emoji reaction with your own message. By tapping an emoji comment below a post, you can see who posted it. This is of course especially useful for group conversations.
Turn off response notifications
If someone posts an emoji response in WhatsApp to your app, you will receive a notification. Don’t want those notifications? It is possible to disable receiving notifications for emojis in WhatsApp:
- Open WhatsApp and tap ‘Settings’ at the bottom right;
- Tap ‘Notifications;’
- Turn the switch behind ‘Response notifications’ to gray.
The new feature will be added via the server, and you probably won’t need to install a software update on your iPhone. You need version (22.9.76) of WhatsApp, which was released two weeks ago. You can check if you have this update by going to the App Store. There, search for “WhatsApp” and tap “Update” next to the app if it’s there.
The emoji reactions are also available for WhatsApp Desktop. If you hover the mouse over an app, a response will appear. Click on it to bring up the popup with the emojis.
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