If you often find yourself muting group chats in WhatsApp Messenger, you probably won’t be too thrilled with the latest feature which the popular instant messaging (IM) app added in their newest update. Namely, as of a few days ago, the Android version of WhatsApp boasts the option of tagging group chat participants in messages. Once tagged, these users will receive notifications even if they have manually muted the conversation before that. Interestingly enough, the Play Store changelog makes no mention of this new feature though it’s not hard to see why it was included in the app, because despite all of the potential drawbacks, the ability to tag users is useful when trying to get an instant response from the person you’re typing to or just want to specifically point something out. Slack had a similar tagging system for quite a while now though the very nature of that app means it’s less likely that its users won’t be willing to receive messages.
Nonetheless, the feature is here now and likely won’t be going away anytime soon, though it’s worth noting that the desktop version of WhatsApp still doesn’t support it. In case you want to try tagging someone in a group conversation, all you have to do is type “@” followed by the name or nickname of the lucky recipient. This even works with people whose contact details aren’t memorized in the address book of your device as long as they happen to be in the same chat group. In addition to that, this system also supports tagging multiple people within a single message.
Tagging isn’t the only new feature included in the latest WhatsApp update. The popular messaging app now also has the option of forwarding messages to multiple chats at once and adds new camera integration features such as the ability to zoom in or out with a single finger when recording video messages. Last but not least, people you often chat with will now appear on top of the contact list that pops out once you tap on the option to forward a message or share something outside of the app which works similar to how the Hangouts app handles content sharing.