WhatsApp will soon let Mac users make voice and video calls from the platform's desktop client, according to a new report from forthcoming feature specialist WABetaInfo.
WhatsApp has offered voice and video calling in its mobile app for some time, but the feature doesn't extend to the encrypted messaging platform's web and desktop clients.
However, that looks set to change, based on a beta of WhatsApp's desktop variant. As the screenshot below shows, users involved in the beta testing stage of the client can see new voice and video calling buttons in the chat header of the app window.
Clicking either button initiates a voice or video call to the selected contact, and then displays a separate pop-up window showing options to enable or disable video, mute the call, or hang up.
Meanwhile, a call recipient using the desktop client sees a similar pop-up window indicating someone is calling them and offering them options to accept or decline the incoming call.
It's not clear how long voice and video calls will remain in beta testing on the desktop client, but WhatsApp is fairly quick at introducing new features, so if we could well see the functionality appear in an update in the next few weeks.
Tuesday April 21, 2026 6:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
WhatsApp has started testing a paid subscription tier called WhatsApp Plus, which adds a set of personalization options on top of the standard messaging experience, according to WABetaInfo.
The paid plan Meta is testing appears to be geared towards hardcore users who spend a lot of time in the app: subscribers get access to premium sticker packs with fullscreen overlay animations (visible to ...
Apple recently announced that Tim Cook will be stepping down as CEO later this year, after 15 years of leading the company.
Effective September 1, Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus will become the company's next CEO, while Cook will become executive chairman of Apple's board of directors. In his new role, Apple said Cook will assist with "certain aspects" of the company,...
Instagram will remove end-to-end encryption for direct messages between users from May 8, 2026. When the date comes around, Meta will potentially be able to see the contents of all messages between users on the social media platform.
Encrypting messages has been an optional feature in Instagram since 2023, but in March of this year the social media platform quietly updated a help page to say ...
... but WhatsApp is fairly quick at introducing new features...
That small statement has just cost you a lot of reporting credibility in my eyes.
It simply could not be further from the truth. That is unless the definition of fairly has changed since I last looked it up (which admittedly has been a while...)
another tracking app ? and now for the Mac ? hmmm - amazing that people simply allow all this
Whilst I fully agree with you on the tracking, it’s not like you have many options when most of the people you know don’t use iPhones (hence iMessage or FaceTimeisn’t an option), and you can’t exactly convince them all to switch to another platform like Telegram or Signal. In the US, where iPhone penetration is higher, it’s probably possible to go by without using WhatsApp, but in many European countries, many times you have a large share of connections that don’t use iPhones and WhatsApp is usually their go to messaging solution. For instance, in my circle of friends and family only an handful use iPhones, even though there are many who use MacBooks and/or iPads (they just don’t like iPhones or refuse to spend €1k on a phone).
An alternative would be choosing your friends based on whether they have iPhones or not! 😁
WhatsApp will soon let Mac users make voice and video calls from the platform's desktop client, according to a new report from forthcoming feature specialist WABetaInfo.
