WeChat: No More Annoying Audio Messages, New Admin Option & More

WeChat version 6.7.2 is now available and includes one (or three) new feature(s) (depending on your phone’s operating system).

On Thursday, all WeChat Group Owners got the ability to set “Group Admins” to help alleviate the task of managing groups. Android users also finally got two popular features that were previously only available in Chinese or to iOS users:

• Ability to Set Group Admins
• English & Cantonese Language Voice Input (iOS 6.6.7)
• QR Code Scanner-to-Translator (iOS 6.6.7)

Group Admins

Managing WeChat groups can be a daunting task; especially if you have many of them. WeChat has finally alleviated some of the burden of group owners by giving them the ability to assign up to three Group Admins!

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To set your new Group Admins, enter into your group, click the menu icon in the top right, click the “Manage Group” option, then the “Group Admin” option. Note: Only available for groups of 100 or more users.

From there, click the plus (+) symbol and you’ll be given the option to select the people from your Contact List that you would like to be your admins. Once you’ve done that, you and the users you add as Admins will see a message in the group, letting them know that they’ve been set as an admin.

The Group Admin’s permissions are practically the same as the Group Owner’s; they will have the ability to edit the Group’s name, publish announcements, delete group members (except the Group Owner and other Admins), and approve new member invitations.

Voice Input now available in English & Cantonese

If you find being forced to listen to audio messages on WeChat annoying then you’re going to love this new feature. If people actually use it, we should hopefully have to listen to less of them.

From within any chat window or group window, go into the options section and press the “Voice Input” button. The language will be set to your phone’s default language; otherwise, you can click on the language to switch to either English, Mandarin or Cantonese.

To get started, all you need to do is click the microphone icon and start speaking. It will then transcribe your voice into text. Don’t worry, you’ll have a chance to edit the text before hitting send.

You can also use voice to search for contacts, articles, moments, etc., by clicking the microphone icon available at the bottom right of the search screen after clicking on the search icon (magnifying glass). Unfortunately, there’s no editing of dictated audio with this feature so it doesn’t seem to work as good as sending messages. I tried various search terms and the success rate of actually finding what I was looking for was less than 50%. Hopefully this will improve over time.

Scan to Transate

This next feature was a huge hit when it became available for iOS users back in May. It’s now finally available for Android users as well! To translate from English-to-and-from-Chinese, go to the “Discover” tab and select “Scan.” You’ll then see the new “Translate” option. Just align any text you want to translate within the scanner area and WeChat will snap a picture and translate it for you.

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