Online messaging app now lets you share documents

folarin okunola

March 4, 2016 12:10 PM

Some users have been able to select documents from cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud Drive, and others, but the feature currently only supports PDF files.

Whatsapp CEO. Jan Koum.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp, which recently hit the 1 billion user mark, has launched a new feature to its iOS and Android apps - document sharing.

Although the company has not made an official statement regarding the feature, I already have it on my phone (an Android device), my colleagues at the office already have it (both Android and iOS users), and there have been reports of the feature from around the world.

On both Android and iOS devices, the feature pretty much works the same. On Android, tap the attachment icon in a chat and press the new document icon that pops up (WhatsApp has compressed the Photo and Video sharing options into one Camera option to make room for the new option).

For iOS, tap the arrow icon in the chat and select 'Share Document' from the menu that pops up.

Some users have been able to select documents from cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloudDrive, and others, but the feature currently only supports PDF files.

Also, if the recipient hasn't upgraded to the latest version of WhatsApp (that is, the version with the Document sharing feature), the document sharing feature won't work (the app will tell you the contact has to "Update WhatsApp to receive documents").

When documents are shared, WhatsApp displays a preview of the PDF file showing the number of pages, file size and type.

If you don't have the feature yet, go update your WhatsApp messenger now! Thank me later.

folarin okunola