Photos from WhatsApp take up a large part of your smartphone's storage space: here's how to delete them and block the automatic download
Pictures are among the multimedia contents that take up the most space on your smartphone's memory. And WhatsApp is largely to blame: every day we receive dozens and dozens of photos from our friends.
If the photos begin to become hundreds and hundreds can become a problem, especially if we have a device with little memory and no microSD. What to do to not clog the memory of the smartphone with WhatsApp images? Very simple: delete them. How do you delete WhatsApp photos from your phone? The process to follow is very simple, but it changes depending on the operating system (Android or iOS). In addition, you also need to know the way the messaging application saves photos on your smartphone: by changing some settings you can block the automatic downloading of multimedia content and images. Here's how to do it.
Where WhatsApp images are saved
WhatsApp handles photo downloads differently depending on the smartphone. On Android devices, whenever an image is downloaded, it is saved both on the Gallery app and within the messaging app. On the iPhone, however, by default, photos are saved only on the app's server, without taking up space on the smartphone's memory. If you want to download the image to the device, you have to do it manually or activate an ad hoc setting within the Photos app.
How to block automatic photo download on WhatsApp
When you receive an image from a friend, WhatsApp automatically downloads it to make it directly visible, otherwise it would appear "blurry". This feature, which is very useful, is actually detrimental to the memory of your smartphone: downloading images on images does nothing but take up space.
Few people know this, but you can block the automatic downloading of multimedia content that you receive on WhatsApp. You have to go into the Settings of the application and press on "Data usage and storage". A new tab will open with some settings: under "Automatic media download" you'll find three options: "When using the mobile network", "When connected via Wi-Fi" and "When roaming". For all three options select "No media". This way when you receive an image or photo it will not be downloaded automatically.
How to delete a WhatsApp photo on the iPhone
If you can no longer manage the images you have received on WhatsApp, you just have to delete them from the iPhone. Doing so is very simple: open the WhatsApp application and enter the conversations in which you are most active, especially in groups where you are more likely to find many images. For each photo you encounter, select it and from the dropdown menu press More and then Delete. It will take some time to delete all the photos, but eventually you'll have an iPhone that will be as fast as it used to be
How to delete a WhatsApp image on Android smartphone
If you have an Android smartphone you can delete WhatsApp images in two different ways: directly from the application or from the Gallery app.
To delete photos from WhatsApp you have to open the application and enter one of the active chats. At this point select the images, press on the trash icon at the top and then on "Delete for me". In this way you will delete the image from WhatsApp, but not from your smartphone.
To clean up the memory of the device open the Gallery app or Google Photos, enter the WhatsApp Images folder, select all images and delete them. In a matter of seconds, your smartphone will be up and running again.