WhatsApp Imposes New Limits, Now You Can Forward To Only One Group At A Time

NEW DELHI: Instant messaging app WhatsApp has imposed new limits on forwarding messages. While the 5 chat limit was imposed in 2018, now users can only send a forwarded message to a single group at a time. Earlier, users were able to forward messages to 5 groups or 5 chats (individual users).

This feature has rolled out to many and most users who had recently updated their WhatsApp found that they could not forward messages to more than one group at a time.

In the next 30-45 days, almost all WhatsApp users in India, will be impacted by the restrictions, said a source familiar with the development as the Instant Messaging App forces users to upgrade to the latest version that has the restrictions built in.

If the message you are trying to forward, has a ‘forwarded‘ tag on it, you can send it to only one group at a time, according to the new WhatsApp rules on forwards.

According to a Tech source, Android and iOS users will not be able to forward a message on more than one groups.

The new feature has been spotted in WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.22.7.2 and WhatsApp beta for iOS version 22.7.0.76.

When a message is already marked as forwarded, it is no longer possible to forward it to more than one group. If a user tries to forward an already forwarded message to another group, they will be met with an alert that says “Forwarded messages can only be sent to one group chat.”

This comes as the latest restriction on message forwarding on WhatsApp, something that has previously been linked to the spread of misinformation in India and abroad.

While this is a welcome step, genuine users who use WhatsApp to promote their small businesses will be badly impacted as they will have to spend almost 10 times the time required earlier to forward messages to their various groups.