CALIFORNIA (Kashmir English): WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging giant, is giving its users greater control over data usage and storage through a new feature.
The feature enables users to select the quality of automatically downloaded media, with either “standard” or “HD” quality available.
Now available to choose beta testers on WhatsApp Beta for Android version 2.25.18.11, the feature lets users choose whether images and videos received as incoming should be stored in “standard quality” or “HD quality.” The feature can be accessed from the app’s Storage and Data settings.
As per reports, this update covers one of the app‘s most frequent grievances: the deluge of high-resolution media in group chats, which congests both phone memory and data plans.
Behind the scenes, the app now implements a dual-upload mechanism if users post HD media. Both the standard and HD versions of a file are uploaded (no server-side compression since end-to-end encryption is implemented). The receiving app later downloads the version that bestsuits their preset preferences—smart, huh?
If you would like to download media in the default standard quality but would like to watch the HD version later, you can specifically ask for it from the server (provided that it has not expired).
This feature is most useful for those who have limited data plans or spotty connections, but who still enable high-resolution fans to maintain their images sharp.
WhatsApp is going to roll out this feature to everyone in a few weeks, so there‘s a bit of waiting to be done. Meanwhile, beta testers are already benefiting from smarter downloads.
