WhatsApp has been ramping up the addition of handy new features in recent times, such as being able to edit messages at last, and another very handy new feature could be on the way.
WABetaInfo has spotted that a new WhatsApp beta version includes prompts to let you share your screen while you’re on a video call, which could be really helpful. Here’s how it looks like it will work.
It’s important to note that for now this feature is only present in a WhatsApp beta on Android, and that even for those users who are signed up for beta versions of the app it might not be activated – it’s clearly in quite a limited test.
However, if the feature is enabled for you, the steps below are how it works, and should give a strong sense of how screen-sharing will work if it’s added for everyone down the line.
- Open WhatsApp
- Start a video call with a contact
- At the bottom of the display, tap the screen-sharing icon (a phone with an arrow on it)
- Confirm that you want to share your screen
- Tap on Stop Sharing whenever you’d like to stop your screen-share
At this stage, though, since this is only a very limited beta feature, we don’t know what limits might apply to it – for example, you might only be able to share your screen with a certain number of viewers at once.
We’ll have to wait for more information from WhatsApp about the feature before we can be certain on that front, and that includes the question of when the feature will actually roll out to all users.
WhatsApp often trials features really far in advance of rolling them out, and it also sometimes tests features that don’t actually make it to the main app at any point, so there’s no guarantee that screen-sharing will come to WhatsApp permanently.