Snapchat Update: How to Use Group Video Chat, Mentions

Snapchat announced Tuesday that users would soon be able to video chat with up to 15 of their friends in the app at any given time. With the update, users will also be able to voice chat with up to 31 people, according to a Snap release. The company also added a feature that is already available in competitor Instagram stories: the option to tag friends in stories in the app.

The new features are part of an update to the app and were set to begin slowly rolling out to iOS and Android users starting Tuesday. The features were expected to be fully implemented on all users' apps over the next few weeks.

Users who were experiencing issues with the app Tuesday, including trouble loading and sending Snaps were advised to try updating their app to the latest version of the software. While not everyone will have the latest features, updating would likely help with the connection issues. Snapchat's support Twitter account was recommending that users try updating to fix the issue.

How to video chat with multiple friends on Snapchat

Snapchat added the option to video and voice chat to the app in 2016 but is expanding it with the latest update.

Users can either open a group chat they already have in Snapchat or they can start a new one and then select the small video icon in the chat. This starts the live video call in the app, while pressing the phone icon starts a voice call with the people in the group instead. When a user does this, the other users in the chat will be notified that they are invited to join the call. Friends can choose to only join via voice if they don't want to video join the call.

While using the video chat feature, users will have access to the face filters and lenses in the app. Users can tell who else is in the call because their name will appear in a bubble above the keyboard, Snapchat said.