Higher quality image upload options are being tested by WhatsApp

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WhatsApp logo (Image credit: Harish Jonnalagadda / iMore)

What you need to know

  • WhatsApp is now testing upgraded image quality for new uploads.
  • The new feature is being tested in the latest iPhone beta release.

Popular messaging app WhatsApp is testing a change that will allow users to upload images in a higher quality than ever before. The new change is being tested by those who are part of the TestFlight beta program right now, hopefully ahead of the feature being made available to all sooner rather than later.

As reported by WABetaInfo, the new feature allows users to select which quality they want to upload images in — Data Saver, or Best Quality. An option to have WhatsApp decide for users is also available and marked as the recommended option.

Whatsapp Media Upload Quality

Whatsapp Media Upload Quality (Image credit: WABetaInfo)

While it doesn't appear that the images will be uploaded in their original quality, selecting Best Quality will still be a significant improvement over what users have had to deal with previously.

As we have explained in a previous article, there is a new option called "Best quality". When you select "best quality", it does not mean that you are sending photos with the original quality, but the algorithm used to compress photos will be lighter, keeping about 80% of the original quality. If the image frame is bigger than 2048×2048, it might be resized. Previous quality values were very different.

WhatsApp is already one of the best iPhone apps around in terms of sending instant messages to people who are on Android devices, but its butchering of image uploads has long been a downside. That now seems to be something WhatsApp is working on fixing.

There's no telling when this will be rolled out to everyone, unfortuantely. The fact it's now being tested in beta form does suggest that it might not be too long of a wait, however.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.