If you’ve been using WhatsApp to make most of your voice and video calls, there’s good news for you. The WhatsApp Desktop app for both Mac and Windows will now support voice and video calls for everyone. The feature has been on beta since last year, and was spotted on the beta versions of the app in December, but the mass rollout begins today. “Answering on a bigger screen makes it easier to work with colleagues, see your family more clearly on a bigger canvas, or free up your hands to move around a room while talking. To make desktop calling more useful, we made sure it works seamlessly for both portrait and landscape orientation, appears in a resizable standalone window on your computer screen, and is set to be always on top so you never lose your video chats in a browser tab or stack of open windows,” the company said in a blog post.
How to get WhatsApp voice and video calling
As it is on the mobile app, the buttons for voice and video calls will show up on the message screens on the desktop app too. If you don’t have it yet, that’s probably because your WhatsApp Desktop app isn’t updated at the moment. It’s worth noting though that you may not get the feature if you’re using the web version of the messaging platform. You will need to download the native Windows or Mac apps to use this.
Private calling WhatsApp desktop
WhatsApp also said that the calls will be end-to-end encrypted, meaning neither WhatsApp, nor anyone else will be able to see them. They will also be protected from man-in-the-middle hacking attacks, though it won’t protect you if an attacker already has access to your phone. Users will only be able to make one-to-one voice and video calls right now, though WhatsApp says group calling is coming in future.
According to WhatsApp, the app broke the record for most calls made on a single day on New Year’s Eve in 2020, with 1.4 billion voice and video calls made from the platform. “With so many people still apart from their loved ones, and adjusting to new ways of working, we want conversations on WhatsApp to feel as close to in-person as possible, regardless of where you are in the world or the tech you’re using,” the blog post said.
