In October last year, WhatsApp news tracker WABetaInfo reported that the Meta-owned service was developing a feature that will display profile icons within group chats. Now, citing a WhatsApp beta for Android update, the website has said that the instant messaging service continues to work on the feature, which is still under development.
With the help of a screenshot, WABetaInfo showed that WhatsApp has not ‘abandoned’ its work on this ability. The screenshot also showed how the option, once fully functional and released, will work.
As seen above, the profile photo of a group member will be displayed next to each message sent by that participant. If a user does not have a profile image, or if it is hidden due to the user’s privacy settings, then an empty profile photo will show up next to his/her name. This default image has a unique characteristic which makes that person easily recognizable: it has the same color as the contact name.
This under-development feature is extremely useful in a situation when two or more participants in a group chat have identical names, or they are without a profile image.
The ability will be released in a future update of the app.
