WhatsApp Now Share Photos In HD Quality

If images from WhatsApp were often highly compressed and therefore sent in poor quality, Messenger now starts with photos in HD quality. Users can send their recordings to friends, and family in high resolution – even if they are not lossless.

Higher image quality now without detours

Previously, users had to use a trick to disguise photos as documents and thus send them to their WhatsApp contacts without any loss of quality. Now the Meta subsidiary has solved the long-standing problem itself. A new HD option is now available for sending images.

The sending of photos in HD quality was tested for several months within the WhatsApp beta and is now also reaching the average consumer. While selecting a photo, a new HD button can be used to select the higher quality level, allowing for image sizes between 9 and 16 megapixels.

HD photos are not (yet) the standard

The default setting for sending images is still standard quality. WhatsApp points out that standard images take up less storage space and can be sent faster. Users must therefore select the HD quality for each photo.

Despite the higher resolution and quality, the images are still compressed, although the loss of quality is significantly less in 4K resolution and higher. In addition, the reception quality of the recipient decides on the final presentation. If the network is weak, the image will first be displayed in standard quality and later downloaded in HD.

The new function of sending photos in HD quality via WhatsApp is currently being rolled out to all users worldwide. Although there is talk of distribution in waves, the new option seems to be spreading quickly. We can already send pictures in HD. According to WhatsApp, HD videos will follow soon.

So far, we’ve seen the switch to HD-quality photos in both the current versions of WhatsApp for Google Android and Apple iOS, as well as WhatsApp Web (in the browser). The app is available in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 and Windows 11 does not seem to have received the update yet.