The popular messaging app has begun testing the long-awaited message scheduling feature with a select group of beta users on iPhone. It is noted that the number of active monthly users of WhatsApp has exceeded three billion worldwide, making it
one of the largest communication platforms. Despite its widespread use, the app lacks some functionalities offered by competing applications for years, including message scheduling. Earlier this year, code hints in the beta version revealed the development of this feature, although
it was not available for testing at that time. Now, the feature has started rolling out to a selected group of beta users on iOS, shortly after appearing in the Android beta version. The feature allows users to schedule messages
by long-pressing the send button within a chat, which opens a screen to select date and time. Users can set a scheduling window ranging from a minimum of 10 minutes up to two weeks, with a confirmation shown only to
the scheduling user. Scheduled messages appear in a dedicated section within chat or group info, and are delivered only to group members present at the time of scheduling. Scheduled messages support diverse content including images, videos, and links, with a
current limitation preventing multiple media items from being scheduled simultaneously. Currently, the feature is available to a select group of testers and cannot be manually enabled, with no announced public release date. As testing continues on both iOS and Android,
broader availability is expected in the near future.
