How To Stop WhatsApp Videos And Photos From Wasting Your Android Phone’s Storage Space

Pretty much everyone has WhatsApp installed on their smartphones. It’s the app of choice for instant messaging, sharing photos and videos, and sending voice notes. The downside is that the media your friends, family and colleagues share can quickly chew up the storage space on your device.

WhatsApp by default automatically downloads any video or photo that you receive on your chats, but you can disable this option and keep your storage free of unwanted stuff.

Alcatel outlines the steps you can follow to control what gets downloaded on your Android device:

1.       Open WhatsApp

2.       Tap on the three dots on the top right corner

3.       Select settings

4.       Choose Chats

5.       Look for media visibility and toggle it off

You can also disable media downloads for a selected chat or group chat on WhatsApp: 

1.       Open WhatsApp

2.       Tap on the three dots in the top right corner

3.       Select view contact/Group Info

4.       Tap on media visibility

5.       After the prompt, “Show newly downloaded media from this chat in your phone’s gallery”, select No

Note that this only affects new media downloaded after the feature has been turned on or off, so you’ll need to delete old photos and videos from WhatsApp if you want to free up some space on your phone.