WhatsApp is used by over a 1.2 billion people worldwide, and 200 million in India alone. In fact, it is probably one of the first apps anyone in India downloads when they get a new smartphone as it has become the default means of texting in the country. However, it can become an annoyance too when it downloads all the media files automatically, from pictures to videos to, more recently, GIFs, not to mention audio files and videos. These not only clutter your phone’s gallery and music player, but also eat up a lot of storage and data. Here’s how you can stop WhatsApp from automatically saving photos and audio on your phone.
WhatsApp for Android has a switch that lets you stop images and videos from downloading. Here’s how you can do it:
To view photos, you will have to download them. When you do, WhatsApp saves them in a folder, and you can get inundated with stupid memes and other unwanted content, which is visible to anyone who open’s your phone’s Gallery App. However, it is possible to stop these photos from appearing in the Gallery app. Here’s how:
How to Stop Auto Downloading and Saving of Pictures, Videos and Other Media on WhatsApp for iPhone
- Open WhatsApp and tap the Settings button at the bottom-right, and tap on Data and Storage Usage
- In this menu, you will see the Media Auto-Download option on top
- For Photos, Audio, Videos, and Documents, select the Never option
