Messenger is already one of the most popular apps for communication between friends and family and it has more uses than virtually any other chat application on mobile. Although Facebook’s recent inclusion of bots inside Messenger has received less than desirable praise from many, one feature that is sure to capture the attention of loyal Messenger users is the group calls functionality. While this is not completely new as Facebook had rolled it out prior to today, it was only available in select regions. Today marks the arrival of Group Calls for all users as Facebook has begun to roll out the feature globally on both the Android and iOS platforms.
With the global push of the new-ish feature, users should begin seeing the option to make group voice calls pop up inside of the app, although it’s entirely possible that the global rollout could take the next few days before it reaches everyone, as is usually the case with most app updates from any company. Facebook’s David Marcus who made the announcement about the global rollout however, states that it should only take the next 24 hours to hit every user, but users will need to be on the latest version of Messenger for it to show up. Facebook makes it extremely simple to find and start group voice calls. Users will first have to be in a group conversation, from there a new phone button should be visible at the bottom of the screen that, when tapped, allows the user to initiate a group voice call to everyone that’s inside of that particular group conversation.
Facebook notes that a group voice call can unsurprisingly be placed from within any group conversation that a user is in, and no matter who started the group conversation, any person that’s included can place the group voice call. Once the call is placed, users can view and manage participants individually from a separate screen which lists off who from the group conversation is in the call and who is not. If you’re using the latest version of Messenger now and are already in a few group conversations or any for that matter, open them up and see if the feature has appeared.