Facebook
Facebook is rolling out three new features for Stories. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Facebook has announced that it will be bringing three new features to its Android and iOS apps. The updates are intended to help users share more on Facebook, while also making sure that Facebook Stories continues to grow its number of users.

The first upcoming feature will allow users to save photos and videos to their account in the Facebook cloud. Photos and videos saved in the Facebook cloud can only be viewed by the user and they can be posted at a later time. Only photos and videos taken with the Facebook Camera can be saved on the Facebook cloud. This new feature is ideal for users who don’t have enough storage on their device. Facebook didn’t say if there’s a capacity limit to save photos and videos in the cloud, according to The Verge.

The next feature that facebook is adding is the ability to create and share audio as a voice post on Facebook Stories. This new feature will be present as a new mode in the Facebook Camera. It should be located right next to the “Normal” camera option in the camera mode carousel. Audio posts in Facebook Stories can also include a colored background or a photo from the user’s camera gallery. Users will also be able to add stickers, texts and or doodles to their Facebook Stories audio posts.

The third and last feature that Facebook will add is the ability to archive and view older Stories. Users will have the option to archive their favorite Facebook Stories before they expire after 24 hours. Archived stories will be viewable on the new “Your Archive” section of the Facebook app. This new feature is somewhat similar to Instagram Stories archive, which was made available last year, as pointed out by MacRumors.

All three new features will be available in India first before being made available to everyone else in the world in the near future. India is home to hundreds of millions of users and these features should get them interested in using Facebook Stories more.

“We know that the performance and reliability of viewing and posting Stories is extremely important to people around the world, especially those with slower connections,” Facebook’s director of Stories Connor Hayes told TechCrunch. “We are always working on ways to improve the experience of viewing Stories on all types of connections, and have been investing here — especially on our FB Lite app.”