You can now listen to WhatsApp voice messages before hitting send

Messaging platform WhatsApp announces slew of new features to make voice notes more dynamic on the platform, says seven billion voice messages are sent on platform every day

WhatsApp has announced a slew of features for voice messaging on its platform, including playback of a voice note before sending it, pause and resume recording, playing the messages outside of the chat and more.

“When we first launched voice messaging in 2013, we knew that it could change the way people communicate. By keeping the design simple, we’ve made recording and sending a voice message as quick and easy as writing a text,” the company said.

“Every day on WhatsApp, our users send 7 billion voice messages on average, all of which are protected by end-to-end encryption to keep them private and secure at all times,” it added.

The Meta (formerly Facebook) -owned messaging platform will also enable waveform visualisation to show a visual representation of the sound on the voice message to help follow the recording, a remember playback tool so that if a user pauses when listening to a voice message, they can pick up later where they left off, and playback of voice messages at 1.5x or 2x speeds to listen to messages faster on both regular and forwarded messages.

“Voice messages have made it quick and easy for people to have more expressive conversations. Showing emotion or excitement through voice is more natural than text, and in many situations, voice messages are the preferred form of communication on WhatsApp,” the company said.

“It’s simple for anyone to use - for your family members who prefer to avoid typing, for your friends who love to tell stories, for your peers who need encouraging words, or for when you want to hear your partner's voice at the end of a long day,” it added.

According to Statista, there are over 487 million WhatsApp users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of WhatsApp audience size. Second-ranked Brazil had 118.5 million WhatsApp messenger users. WhatsApp is the most popular messaging service worldwide with approximately 2 billion monthly active users, says the market research company.