If you are a member of dozens of WhatsApp groups, you will surely receive hundreds of photos and videos every day. And if you have auto-download media enabled, it can quickly fill up storage on your iPhone or Android. Fortunately, you can prevent WhatsApp from automatically saving photos and videos on iPhone and Android.
1. Prevent WhatsApp from saving photos on iPhone
First, we will show you how to turn off automatic media downloads on iPhone. It is very useful for people with tight mobile data plan. Follow the steps below to make changes from the WhatsApp settings menu.
Step 1: Open WhatsApp on iPhone and go to Settings.
Step 2: Select Storage and Data.
Step 3: You will find the option to Download media automatically.
Step 4: Go to each menu – Photo, Audio, Video and Documents and turn off auto download for each media type.
You can enable automatic media downloads on Wi-Fi, but don’t select Wi-Fi and Cellular.
Disable Save to Camera Roll
You have disabled media auto-download in WhatsApp for iPhone. However, whenever you try to download photos or videos in WhatsApp, the app automatically saves them to the camera roll on your iPhone.
If you’ve enabled iCloud uploading on your iPhone, you’ll see those unnecessary photos and videos from WhatsApp get uploaded to iCloud servers as well.
Step 1: Launch WhatsApp on iPhone.
Step 2: Go to the Settings tab.
Step 3: Select Chat.
Step 4: Disable the Save to Camera Roll switch and you’re good to go.
Now that you have followed the steps above, here is the current situation for your WhatsApp account on iPhone.
You’ll continue to receive new photos and videos in your WhatsApp group and personal chats. You can tap the download icon for incoming media and go through the content.
If you want to save that particular photo or video to the Photos app on your iPhone, tap the photo and open the preview.
Tap the share icon at the bottom and you have multiple options like Save, Forward, Share and Set as Profile Picture. Tap Save and save the media to the gallery. That way you save files only selectively and don’t mess up the phone memory by extraneous means.
2. Prevent WhatsApp from saving photos on Android
WhatsApp for Android offers a different navigation system than its iPhone counterpart. Follow the steps below to prevent WhatsApp from saving photos and videos on Android.
Step 1: Open WhatsApp on Android and tap on the three-dot menu at the top.
Step 2: Go to Settings and open Storage and Data.
Step 3: From Automatically download media, select When on mobile data and turn off all media types from the pop-up menu.
Disable Media Download for Android Gallery
Similar to how we did it on iPhone, you have the option to turn off saving downloaded media in your phone’s gallery.
Step 1: Launch WhatsApp on Android and go to Settings.
Step 2: Select Chat.
Step 3: Turn off the Media visibility toggle from the Chat Settings menu.
From now on, media will not leave WhatsApp chats or groups. You need to manually save the photo or video to the phone gallery.
Step 1: Tap the photo or video that you need to see in WhatsApp.
Step 2: Open the photo or video preview.
Step 3: Select the three-dot menu at the top and select Save.
Manage media storage in WhatsApp
You have successfully prevented WhatsApp from saving all types of media files on Android and iPhone. But what about existing media files? WhatsApp offers a neat Archive Manager to handle them.
Step 1: Open WhatsApp and go to Settings.
Step 2: Select the Storage and Data menu.
Step 3: Tap Manage Storage.
Step 4: You will see a detailed WhatsApp media breakdown from the following menu. Tap Media files larger than 5 MB and delete them from your phone.
Efficient WhatsApp media management
The default WhatsApp settings automatically download upcoming photos, videos and gifs and save them to the phone memory. It consumes internet bandwidth as well as precious storage space on your phone. If you’re not careful, you can fill your phone gallery with tons of Good Morning photos. Instead of manually deleting them, you can make some tweaks to the settings in WhatsApp and prevent the app from saving photos.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
