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Facebook Messenger works with 360-degree photos and HD videos

For those moments when ordinary pics aren't enough.

A few months after giving you a way to send 4K images on Messenger, Facebook has rolled out the ability to blast your friends with 360-degree photos and HD videos. Maybe you'd rather share whatever you take to a few people through the messaging app rather than posting it on Facebook. Or maybe you just want to to make sure friends who don't frequent the social network are updated on what you're up to. Whatever the reason is, you can send people panoramic photos and 720p videos like you would any other media.

Just take a panorama using your phone's Camera app or another third-party app of your choice and send it like you'd usually send a normal photo from the app itself or from your gallery. Same goes for 720p videos, except you can also send them straight from your News Feed or from another Messenger conversation. The recipients will know they're no ordinary media by the compass icon that appears next to panoramic photos and the HD and SD marker that shows up next to high-quality videos. They can view a 360-degree image by dragging it around on the screen or by moving their phones. As for the videos, recipients can use the marker to lower their quality in full screen mode in case they want to save mobile data or if their connection's pretty bad.

You can send and receive 360-degree photos in Messenger wherever you are in the world and whether you're on iOS or Android. However, you'll only get the ability to send and receive HD videos if you're in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the US.