WhatsApp Beta adds new emoji feature on Windows

Meta released a new WhatsApp Beta version for Windows systems. The team developed the Beta version as a Universal Windows Platform (UWP), making it more aligned with the upcoming Windows 11. Since the new WhatsApp Beta’s release, we’ve seen improvements to many features.

The latest development on WhatsApp Beta has been a new feature for emojis. Emoji’s have been available on WhatsApp Beta for Windows and iOS for a while; however, recently, the developers introduced shortcuts to make emojis on a desktop or laptop easier and more convenient.

WABetaInfo first reported this new feature available in the WhatsApp UWP beta version 2.2206.1.0. It allows users to type the emoji prefixed with a colon (:). Once you start typing after the colon, a bar will pop up with emoji recommendations for you to choose from. This means you don’t need to look for the emoji manually from Windows virtual keyboard or the emoji picker.

While this feature was available in the older version of WhatsApp on Windows, it was missing from the UWP version until now. This feature works similar to existing emoji shortcuts found on Slack, Discord, and other messaging apps.

In recent months, we have seen Meta do a lot of work on the WhatsApp Beta for Windows. Just this month, WhatsApp introduced a dark mode for the Windows app. We saw search engine filters in January, along with improvements to disappearing messages. WhatsApp Pay is also now available in India, while background voice notes playback is available to some users. We’re still looking forward to the release of the Android-to-iOS chat transfer, WhatsApp Community feature, and message reactions that are in the works.

With all the improvements to WhatsApp Beta, we look forward to seeing how well it functions on Windows 11 once it’s been officially released.