Sending Messages and Media
At a glance
| Location | Inside every conversation, in the composer and the message actions |
| Plan | All plans, including the free tier |
| Related features | 3 |
The everyday send path inside a conversation: text with WhatsApp formatting (bold, italic, strikethrough and monospace) from a toolbar above the composer, photos, videos and documents, a camera capture for taking a photo or short clip without leaving the chat, and contact cards picked from your contacts or chats. A photo is never sent straight from the picker: choosing one, dragging it in, pasting it or capturing it with the camera opens the picture editor first, and what leaves the editor is what gets sent. The editor crops (freehand or to a preset shape such as square, 4:3 or 16:9), rotates and flips, draws freehand, highlights, blurs a part of the picture, adds text with a readable background behind it, adds emoji stickers, and applies color filters, with an HD quality choice for a sharper send. Several pictures can be worked on in one pass, moving between them and adding or removing one, and the caption written in the editor becomes the message text. On a phone, closing the editor without sending keeps the picture exactly as it was picked. In a WhatsApp chat or a Spun Chat on a computer, the editor opens over the conversation above the composer instead of full screen: the text box of the composer is the caption, closing the editor keeps your edits on the attached picture, and sending from the composer sends the edited version. An animated GIF is left alone rather than flattened into a still frame. The same editor opens wherever a photo is sent: WhatsApp chats, Spun Chats, in-app messages, Human Support, broadcasts, Send to multiple and Status. A photo already waiting in the composer can be tapped to open the editor again on that picture. Media that arrives in a chat is copied into Spun's own storage, so it keeps loading long after the provider link would have expired; images sent together are grouped into an album tile, and a video opens in a full-screen player you can save from. Videos are the one exception you can control: if "Auto-download videos" is turned off for the organization (Settings > Storage, or the Videos choice on the Self Proxy card), an arriving video is not downloaded at all and shows a thumbnail with "Tap to load video" plus the date it stays available until; the first tap fetches it and it is stored from then on. If nobody opened it before WhatsApp stopped keeping it, the bubble says the video is no longer available rather than spinning forever. Media that has only just arrived can take a few minutes before WhatsApp makes it available. Until then the tile says "Still arriving" with "Tap to retry", Spun keeps trying in the background, and the picture appears by itself once it lands. Older media that can no longer be fetched shows "Media unavailable". A voice note that has only just arrived says "Still arriving, tap to retry" in the same way. The playback bar of a voice note can be dragged to any point, or stepped 5 seconds at a time with the arrow keys, and jumping into a note that is not playing starts it from there. Photos, videos and files sent from your phone itself are kept in Spun's storage the same way. Saving behaves correctly per platform: in a browser the file goes straight to the browser's own download, with its progress bar, and Spun shows "Download started" (a file that is still arriving says "Still arriving. Try again in a few minutes"), while the phone app hands it to the system share sheet so you choose where it goes, and closing that sheet without picking anywhere counts as cancelling rather than as a failed save. Delivery state is visible per message, showing who received it and who read it. A message can be forwarded to several destinations at once. If a send times out with no answer from the provider, Spun does not quietly retry it into a duplicate: the message is marked as possibly sent and settles once the real status arrives. A phone number written inside a message is tappable: the menu offers to call it, copy it, save it as a contact, or open a WhatsApp chat with it, and it tells you when that number is not on WhatsApp instead of guessing when the check could not be made. It behaves the same in a WhatsApp conversation and in a Spun Chat one. A send also survives an interruption: a message whose upload was cut short by the phone sleeping or the app being closed is picked up where it left off when the app comes back, one that has been waiting too long comes back as failed with a Retry rather than going out unannounced long after you wrote it, and a very old one is dropped instead. Anything still waiting is cleared when you sign out or switch organization, so a message written under one account can never go out from another.
How to use
- Type in the composer, select text, and use the formatting toolbar for bold, italic, strikethrough or monospace.
- Use the attachment button for a photo, video or document, or the camera button to capture one on the spot. A photo opens the picture editor, where you can crop, rotate, flip, draw, highlight, blur, add text or emoji stickers, apply a filter, choose HD, and write the caption before sending; close it to keep the picture as it was (on a computer the editor sits above the composer, closing it keeps your edits, and you write the caption and send from the composer), or tap the picture again in the composer to carry on editing.
- Tap a received image or video to open it full screen, then use the save button to keep it.
- Hover or long-press a message and choose Forward, then pick one or more destinations.
- Choose Message info on a message you sent to see who it reached and who read it.
- Tap a phone number written inside a message to call it, copy it, save it as a contact, or open a WhatsApp chat with it.
- Drag the playback bar of a voice note to jump to any point in it.
Related features
FAQ
- How do I send a photo?
- How do I crop a photo before sending it?
- Can I draw on a picture before I send it?
- How do I blur part of a photo?
- Can I add text or a sticker to a picture?
- How do I send a photo in HD?
- Why does the picture editor open when I choose a photo?
- Can I edit a photo I already attached?
- Can I make text bold?
- How do I forward a message to several chats?
- Where do saved photos go on my phone?
- How can I tell if my message was read?
- Can I call a phone number I see inside a message?
- What happens to a message if my phone sleeps while it is sending?
- Why did my message come back as failed with a Retry?
- Why does a video say "Tap to load video"?
- Why is a video no longer available?
- Why does a photo say "Still arriving"?
- Can I skip to the middle of a voice note?
- Why does the picture editor open above the composer on my computer?