You will soon be able to mention contacts in your WhatsApp status; here’s how

It’s a new day, and WhatsApp is getting another new feature. This time, it has to do with WhatsApp status. Yes, the same Instagram story like updates our parents love posting on WhatsApp. What’s new though, is that users will now be able to tag others in their status, just the way they do on an Instagram story. Read on to find out more.

What the new mention feature on Status for WhatsApp is, and how it works

According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp Beta for Android (version 2.23.6.19) has a new option that allows users to mention their contacts in their status updates. This feature will come particularly in handy when putting up a status for the birthday of a loved one, or pictures and videos from the wild house party over the weekend.

Now, there has been apprehension regarding safety with the feature, since it was thought that mentioning a contact in your status may reveal their name and phone numbers to everyone else in your contact list. However, WhatsApp has that taken care of, as only the WhatsApp username of contact you mention in your status will be visible to viewers.

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If someone were to mention you in their WhatsApp status, it shows up as a notification on your phone saying you were privately mentioned in a status post. Now, since the only notification that has been spotted says “privately mentioned,” whether or not others viewing your status will even be able to see the mention, remains to be seen.

Mentions on WhatsApp, either way, are a great way to directly notify your friends, family, or colleagues that you want to mention in the status, allowing them to react or reply to it before the it disappears after 24 hours.

Currently, the new mention feature has been spotted only on WhatsApp Beta for Android. When the feature will make its way to WhatsApp on iPhones and for laptops and desktops, remains to be seen as of yet.

Other features to look out for on WhatsApp

WhatsApp also recently introduced a rather handy feature that allows you to pin multiple messages in a chat and even got an option to set favourite contacts on the desktop version of the app.

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These features combined with multi-account support across devices, the ability to format text and edit messages after they’ve been sent, to share your screen on video calls and more, have allowed WhatsApp to establish its dominance in the instant messaging space quite like never before.