Messaging platform,WhatsApp, will now allow users to make voice and video calls via its desktop application. 

This feature is to enable “conversations on WhatsApp to feel as close to in-person as possible.”

WhatsApp said the desktop application for Mac and Windows will only support one-to-one calls for now.  It will expand to group calls in the future, it said, though no timeframe has been provided.

The company said that it had seen “significant increases in people calling one another on WhatsApp, often for long conversations” over the last year.

WhatsApp, used by over 2 billion people, said it processed over 1.4 billion calls on New Year’s Eve. The company said like the messages and calls on the mobile application, voice and video calls for desktop are also end-to-end encrypted.

This feature, however, does not apply to the WhatsApp web extension for now. 

To use the new video calling feature, users will have to set up the WhatsApp desktop app on either Mac or PC, which requires that you already be a WhatsApp user on mobile.

WhatsApp’s new features come as the roll out for its planned changes to privacy policies comes up on May 15,  the company still faces ongoing tension and backlash over the new terms, which it was forced to delay in the wake of widespread outcry over user data privacy with parent company Facebook