What is WhatsApp’s new screen sharing feature: A closer look

It’s almost every month that WhatsApp adds some new features to the most popular messaging app. This time it’s screen sharing in video calls.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that WhatsApp will now support screen sharing in video calls – to catch up with traditional video conferencing apps, including Microsoft Meet, Google Meet, Zoom, and Apple’s FaceTime.

It works the way it is named, using this feature one can share documents, photos, or even the shopping cart with contacts on video calls.

The feature has been under development for the last few months and it went out to beta testers in May.

How to use the screen-sharing feature?

During a video call, you can press the Share icon and start using the feature. You can select whether you want to share only a specific app only or your entire screen. Those who have used Zoom and Google Meet will find it familiar as the two apps also offer the function in a similar fashion.

While WhatsApp continues to retain the largest user base, Zoom and Google Meet did capture some of its territory by offering more business-friendly features like group video calls and of course, screen sharing way before the Meta-owned company.

You may not be able to see the feature right away because as usual, it will be rolled out in a phased manner. Over the n6frw weeks, it will be made available on Android, iOS, and the Windows desktop client.

Also, to make things slightly more convenient for screen sharing, WhatsApp will now allow landscape-mode video calls.

Recently, WhatsApp introduced picture-in-picture support for video calls to iOS. It also enabled the option to share short video messages in chats.

It also added the feature to add a caption while sending documents both on iOS and Android.

The company is also planning to roll out a feature on iOS to send 100 pictures or documents at one go. This feature is already available to Android users.