WhatsApp has always been a little stingy when it comes to group chat size, but it’s getting there.
In May, the company increased group size to 512 people and added the ability to share files that are up to 2GB in size. And now, WABetaInfo noticed that the group size has been doubled again.
In the latest beta of WhatsApp for Android and iOS, users can add up to 1,023 other participants to a group. The feature is currently available only to a limited number of beta testers, but it’s safe to assume it’ll be released more widely soon.
With this seemingly small change, WhatsApp comes one step closer to Telegram, which allows for massive groups of several hundred thousand people.
Of course, such big groups are of little use if you can’t properly manage them, but there’s good news on that front as well. WABetaInfo also claims that WhatsApp is working on new tools that should give admins more ways to handle large groups. These include a membership approval system as well as a list of pending group participants, which allows group admins to see all of the people that are asking to join the group and approve them all at once.
These are just part of the upgrades WhatsApp has envisioned for group chats. Communities, which is a way to connect different groups into a single « community, » were launched in a limited release in August.
