How to delete media from whatsapp

Want to delete pics, videos etc from a WhatsApp chat and keep only texts? Here’s how

Home How To Want to delete pics, videos etc from a WhatsApp chat and keep only texts? Here’s how

WhatsApp saves all the photos, videos and GIFs from every chat when it backs up your chats. It’s unnecessary clutter and you really don’t need all that there, you can delete them from the chat itself and keep just the texts.

Since WhatsApp is literally the most popular messaging app out there, pretty much everyone is on it. While it's great for convenience, this also means that you will be bombarded with forwarded photos and videos you really do not want.

Fortunately, for annoying chats like these, both individual and group chats, WhatsApp has introduced a forever mute option so as you are not annoyed by the alerts and can choose to check the messages if and when you want to.

There is also the option of turning down auto-downloads of media on your account so nothing, not even stickers, will be downloaded on your device unless you manually do it.

Also Read: WhatsApp to get join missed calls, biometric lock, new calls feature soon

In all this, there also might be some texts that you actually need and might want to keep so deleting entire texts is not an option. On WhatsApp you can choose to delete the media (photos, videos, GIFs etc) while keeping the messages only.

On both Android and iOS,

- Go to Settings, click on Data and Storage Usage, then click on Storage Usage.

- Select the contact or the group whose media you want to delete.

- Click on Manage and then tick all the boxes you want deleted - like photos or videos or GIFs, or all of them. Leave out the text messages box.

- Click on Clear and then confirm.

Alternately, you can see that you have the option to just keep the media and delete the texts. Pick what you need.

Going forward, you can adjust settings for particular group chats/contacts to prevent media from getting downloaded automatically.

On iOS, go to Chat, select the contact or the group chat you want to stop these auto-downloads for. Click on the contact or subject on top of the display, then go to Save to Camera Roll and change Default/Always to Never.

Also Read: WhatsApp now lets you mute chats forever

For Android, go to the contact or group chat, click on the top bar, select media visibility, change the settings here from default to a no or a yes, as you want. Click on okay to confirm your selection.

Across iOS, you can stop media from being saved to your camera roll by going to Settings, clicking on Chats and toggling off ‘Save to Camera Roll' from Default/Always to Never.

On Android you can do it by going to Settings, then Chats, then toggling off Show Media in Gallery or Media Visibility.

Special tip

There's another tried and tested way around this where you can take a look at what has been sent and then decide if you want to save that photo or video or not. This works only if you use WhatsApp Web chat.

On WhatsApp web, you can check out the media sent on the web first and then decide if you want to download it and save it on your smartphone. Downloading media on the web does not automatically save it on your smartphone.

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First Published Date: 27 Oct, 19:55 IST

Tags: whatsapp

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How to delete unwanted WhatsApp media from your Android phone

There are perks and downsides to using WhatsApp, the world’s most widely used messaging app. An upside is that your contacts are more likely to be on WhatsApp, but at the same time, you also have to put up with those obnoxious good morning messages, expendable memes, and all sorts of unnecessary stuff that, once downloaded, will sit in your phone for eternity. But that growing pile can be particularly concerning on phones with limited internal storage, and with expandable memory becoming rare, it can be a challenge. Handling all the WhatsApp media and files running into several GBs can be a big and tedious task for sure, but here's our guide for cleaning WhatsApp photos, videos, files, and other stuff from your phone.

Use the WhatsApp’s built-in storage tool

With WhatsApp, it's easy to identify chats using a lot of storage and may slow down your phone. Using the storage manager, you can easily sort the files by size and delete the ones you don’t need anymore or have already backed up. Here’s how you can get there:

In the main Chats tab, go to Settings by tapping the vertical ellipses icon at the top.
Head to Storage and data and select the first option that says Manage storage. There you’ll see the break-up of the storage WhatsApp is using, along with some suggestions and a list of chats sorted by size.
Go into Larger than 5MB to glance at the files taking up the most storage across all chats, or tap on the first chat to reveal all the files you’ve received from that contact. They are sorted by size by default, but you can change that order from the hamburger menu at the top.
Now you just have to select the media and files you don’t want anymore and hit the delete button. Removing a file from here also wipes it from your phone storage unless you’ve made another copy of it outside the default WhatsApp folder.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 with as many chats as required to reclaim most of the storage space.

4 Images

There’s a good chance you only have a few (or single) contacts or groups that send a lot of junk. Instead of going the long way, you can simply get rid of their stuff from their chat window itself.

When on their chat screen, tap the ellipses menu at the top-right corner and select Media, links, and docs.
On the next screen, you’ll see all the files in that chat arranged by type. You don’t get the option to sort them by size, so you’ll have to scan the files manually.
Select all the files and media that need to go and tap the trash icon in the top menu.

3 Images

A few more useful tools that can help you get your media off WhatsApp

It can be tough to keep track of your phone’s storage when you have a bunch of contacts and groups sending you all kinds of photos, videos, PDFs, and whatnot. If you fall under that group, you’ll appreciate having some smart tools that make your life easier.

Files by Google

Files by Google was originally designed for super-cheap phones running Android Go-edition to help users manage meager phone storage. As it turns out, you can use the same AI smarts to filter out WhatsApp files that need to be trashed. The Clean section of the app gives you an overview of what’s taking up the most space and gives suggestions based on what’s there in those images.

Frair warning: The Files by Google app messes up identifying the image content sometimes. Although its fairly accurate, you'll want to take a quick glance at the app's recommendations before you get rid of your WhatsApp media.

2 Images

Besides that, the Files app also highlights the WhatsApp images folder so that you don’t have to dig for the folder manually. That comes in handy if you prefer looking at all your WhatsApp media in one place instead of getting to them one chat at a time.

Save your photos to Google Photos

Google Photos continues to be the best photo management app for Android, and it’s no surprise that it works well for managing WhatsApp media, too. Of course, you'll what to keep your Google Photos feed organized, or you'll learn just how quickly 15GB of free Google Drive storage can disappear. Like Files, Photos also gives quick access to your WhatsApp media folders where you can back up any important stuff or get rid of what you don’t need anymore.

The backup feature on Google Photos is the most helpful. After the Google Photos app has backed up an important image or video on WhatsApp, you just need to use the Free up space feature, to remove it from WhatsApp

2 Images

Neither of these two apps is ideal when organizing a ton of WhatsApp files, but they do help trim down the clutter quite a bit to make it more manageable. There are a handful of third-party apps that claim to automate the entire process, but we advise going against them. That’s because many of them do image processing in the cloud, and we're guessing you wouldn’t want your personal photos to end up on a no-name remote server.

How to keep WhatsApp from hogging your phone storage in the future

You’ll probably find yourself scrambling to clear your phone’s storage in no time if you don’t prevent WhatsApp from filling up the space again. There are a few simple things you can do to ensure that.

Save a lot of space on WhatApp by turning off media auto-download

Head to Settings > Storage and data and deactivate auto-download for all file and network types. Doing this will give you control over what files you want to download on your phone and which are best left unseen.

2 Images

Hide your media visibility in the WhatsApp gallery

Those who just don’t want media shared on WhatsApp to show up in their phone’s gallery app can toggle it off from Settings > Chats > Media visibility. Instead of a universal rule, you can do that for individual chats and groups as well by going to their profile page > Media visibility > select no.

Note that doing this just won’t show the images and videos in the gallery app; they’ll still be downloaded in the default WhatsApp folder.

3 Images

Use WhatsApp web if you live on your laptop

People who spend most of their time on a computer should use WhatsApp web for their chats. Media files viewed on the desktop naturally don’t take up any space on your phone, though they still remain accessible whenever you need to download them. This is particularly helpful for single-use files that would otherwise live on your phone storage until you got to them manually.

WhatsApp isn't the only game in town

Yes, WhatsApp is the app everyone uses to chat (unless you're in the US), but it's not the only awesome third-party messaging platform. Check out our favorite end-to-end encrypted messaging apps if you want to chat with your friends and family in private.

How to delete media files and chat history from WhatsApp without any special software

Photos, videos and animations take up space in your phone's storage, so you need to delete them from time to time. Doing it manually, sending each image to the basket, is quite a long time. The easiest way is to destroy all the dialogues - but then the correspondence will also disappear. You can clean up unnecessary, and at the same time stop automatically saving all sent and received media files, on the Data and Storage tab.

Ways to delete data

The function of clearing messages and other information is built into the application. This does not require separate programs, just go to the WatsApp settings. All media files are displayed in the smartphone's memory by default, if desired, this function can be turned off, and then the images will not be saved. There are several ways to get rid of what is already stored on the device:

delete entire correspondence;
clear history through settings;
hide with the {{.nomedia}} file - only for Android phones.

Important!

Changing the file display setting takes effect only for new shipments that are received after it is turned on or off.

Complete cleaning

If you want to free up device memory and delete all files stored in WatsApp at once, use the delete chats function. Remember that everything else will be deleted along with the video and pictures. For iPhone users, the uninstall process looks like this:

Go to the application and log in.
Click on the icon, which is located in the lower right corner, looks like a gear.
In the settings, select the "chats" tab and then "clear all".
Enter your phone number in the window that appears.
Press "delete all" again.

Important!

It will take a few seconds if there are many chats. Changes are not always displayed immediately. Restart the program for normal operation.

For Android users, the first two steps are the same. Log in, open the control panel. Then you need to select "chats", then "chat history". When you click "delete everything", a window will pop up asking you to delete all files from your phone. If you check the box, then all sent and received media files will disappear from memory, if not, they will be saved in the smartphone, but not in the application. You will have to manually delete them from your smartphone.

Deleting only media files

It is convenient to operate the received information using the "Data and storage" tab, which is located in the application settings. This method is suitable for users of any phones. You will have to delete files from each dialog, but all correspondence will be saved. click on the "storage" button, select the desired dialog and click on the "management" tab. A list of all the information stored in the conversation will open. You need to check the box for the type of data that you want to erase - and click "clear". Repeat with all chats until you get rid of all unnecessary.

Important!

The program stores some of the information in a cached form, so for complete removal you will have to clear all dialogs and then reinstall WhatsApp again.

When deleted from the phone, all sent media files will remain on other devices, at the recipients. You can't get rid of them remotely. The only way to completely erase them is to ask the recipient to destroy them on their device. But if less than 7 minutes have passed since the moment of sending, then you can click on the message and click "erase for everyone" - then it will disappear from the addressee too. Remember that during this time a person can manage to save what he received. Do not send compromising information and do not store it in access.

To prevent pictures and videos sent to you from being stored in your phone's memory, turn off auto download in your WhatsApp settings.

Special object

Android users can use a secret method to hide images and videos from the media library using a generated object called {{. nomedia}}. It needs to be loaded into the directive where all the pictures saved in the WhatsApp memory are stored. All media files will be hidden from the camera roll too, but they can be restored by simply destroying the system file. To create it:

Go to the Google Play Store.
Download a file manager to your device.
Open it, then pass the directive: {{Images/WhatsApp Images/}}.
Generate an object and name it {{.nomedia}}, always with a dot at the beginning, as in the example.

This will hide the images from the film but will not disappear from the smartphone. They will simply be invisible. To disable this feature, go to the specified directive and delete the object you created.

Cleaning up images, videos and other documents from within the application allows you to get rid of unnecessary things, reduce the amount of data, and make backups easier. To clear the memory completely, uninstall the application and reinstall it. You can get rid of pictures in WatsApp on any smartphone using the "Data and Storage" tab. For Android users, there is an option to create a picture that will make images invisible.

How to delete text messages, photos or videos in a specific whatsapp chat.

How to delete WhatsApp chats?

To delete chats from WhatsApp, use the following procedure:

1. Go to the application and press the options button located in the upper right corner of the screen (it shows three dots).

2. In the menu that appears, select "Settings" - "Chats" - "Chat History".

3. Next, click "Delete all chats".

At the end, check the box next to the option "Delete media files from your phone" and click "Delete". After the process is completed, WhatsApp will be cleared of unnecessary backups of conversations.

Deleting photos in WhatsApp from the recipient

The way to uninstall images from the recipient depends on the operating system of the gadget (Android or iPhone).

On the iPhone

To delete unnecessary files sent to the dialog, perform the following steps:

Launch the WhatsApp program on the phone. This will open the list of chats.
Find and highlight messages in a dialog. To do this, long press to select the appropriate area of the screen. As a result, a tool for working with messages should appear.
Find the “More” key. In the list that opens, select the “Delete” item and activate the “Delete from everyone” option. The photo will be removed from the dialog.

On Android

To completely eliminate erroneously sent images, follow these steps:

Open the WhatsApp application. After that, they go to the “Chats” tab, where there is a list of active users and dialogs.
Messages with a photo are found in a group dialogue. A long press on the desired area will launch the tool for working with sent files.
Find the trash can icon in the corner of the page. Clicking on the icon will open an auxiliary menu. Next, select the “Delete from all” option.

After performing these actions, instead of the sent information, the inscription “The message was deleted by the user” will be displayed.

How do I delete media from WhatsApp?

To delete video and audio files, follow the instructions:

1. Go to the program settings, but instead of the "Chats" option, select the "Data and storage" item.

2. In the menu that appears, click on the "Storage" option (this item is available only if the application contains media files that can be deleted).

3. In the current tab, select the required chat.

4. Click Manage messages to continue.

5. Next, check the box next to the desired option, and then click "Delete Messages".

6. At the end, confirm the deletion by clicking on the "Delete all messages" item. After that, the storage of media files will be cleared.

What is WhatsApp storage

Storage is the cache of the messenger located in the phone's memory. It stores all text, voice messages, photos, gifs, videos and more. Users should know how to delete files from the WhatsApp storage, as its overflow leads to a malfunction of the messenger.

How to open the cache

Many users are concerned about the question of how to view the WhatsApp storage, since not everyone knows where it is located. In it, you can see the total weight of files, network usage statistics, and also set up autoloading of media.

To check if WhatsApp takes up a lot of memory on iPhone or Android, you need to go to the messenger settings, go to "Data and storage" - "Manage storage".

There are all the statistics of the amount of used and free space. In the management, you can view all the objects of a particular chat, the most frequently sent messages and individual files larger than 5 MB.

How do I block WhatsApp files from being saved to system memory?

Create a special .nomedia file to prevent WhatsApp from downloading various garbage to the phone's internal memory. This is done as follows:

Connect your smartphone to the computer and go to the system memory.
Find the folder where WhatsApp messenger is saved - WhatsApp/Media/Whatsapp/Images.
Next, open notepad on your computer and create an empty file: during saving, specify a special name for the file - .nomedia (be sure to put a dot in front of the name), and in the "File type" category, select "All".
Now transfer the created file to your smartphone in the WhatsApp folder.

After completing the operation, WhatsApp will no longer be able to save media files to the gadget. Also, the .nomedia folder can be created through any explorer - the algorithm of actions is identical.

Restoring a deleted message

Both individual messages and a selected number of them can be restored. There are several ways:

Backup. It is created daily, it stores all correspondence and sent files. Just select a date or time period and click the "Restore" button.
Restoring an unsent message. If the sending did not take place, after deletion, there will be an icon next to it, suggesting that you carry out the procedure for returning the person you are looking for to the conversation.

If the dialog has been updated, then only the first method is possible. To use it, you need to activate the function of creating a backup archive in the application settings. This must be done before the moment when you need to return the remark to the chat. This function will help to return all files in case of reinstalling WhatsApp. Storage takes place in the internal storage of the smartphone and on Google drive.

The popular messenger allows both deletion and return of messages. The function allows you to erase uncomfortable or unnecessary remarks both from the user himself and from his interlocutors. WhatsApp sets a time limit for such actions; after the set time, the manipulations will be ineffective. The algorithm does not depend on the status of the user: administrator or regular user.

How to transfer WhatsApp files to a memory card?

ES conductor. First, we need to make a couple of remarks about the terminology of the application. If the internal memory of a smartphone is divided into system and application memory, then in some cases in ES Explorer the internal drive is called SD Card, and the external drive is marked here as External SD. Also in the explorer there is a USB storage item - this is the name of a flash drive connected using an OTG cable.

How to transfer WhatsApp files or any other system files from internal storage to a flash drive using ES File Explorer? To do this, follow these steps:

Go to the SD Card (remember that this is what the internal memory is called here) and check the boxes for the files and folders that you want to transfer.
Now press the "Cut" button and swipe to the right - this action will return the main menu of the explorer.
Next, open the External SD folder and, having selected the desired directory, click the "Insert" item.

In this way, old files will be transferred to external memory.

FolderMount. To work with this program, you need to obtain root-rights. To transfer the root folder to a USB flash drive using FoldMount, do the following:

Enter the application and click on the item marked with a plus.
Enter any name in the "Name" line.
Next, transfer the WhatsApp folder to the "Exclude" section, which is located on the USB flash drive.
Now in the "Destination" section you will need to specify the required folder.
To avoid creating duplicate media files, check the box next to "Exclude from media scan".
Click Yes at the end.

Part 3: Make a backup before deleting WhatsApp photos

Although you want to delete large media files from your iPhone, it is also important to make a backup with Apeaksoft WhatsApp Transfer. You can backup all WhatsApp data to your Windows or Mac computer. Meanwhile, you can delete WhatsApp photos from your camera roll, iCloud, or anywhere else to free up more storage space.

Apeaksoft WhatsApp Transfer

Complete backup of photos, videos, chats, contacts and other WhatsApp files.
Export your WhatsApp backup in HTML or CSV formats.
Preview and selectively restore WhatsApp from backup history or local iTunes backup.
No data loss or overwriting.
Seamlessly transfer WhatsApp data between iOS devices.

How to clean WhatsApp

The messenger monitors the amount of free space in the accounts of its users. When the memory in the cache runs out, a notification arrives that it needs to be cleared for the stable operation of the application. You should take care of the amount of free space in advance, as if it is full, the user may miss important messages. You should figure out how to clear the storage in WhatsApp on iPhone and Android.

Android

How to clear WhatsApp storage on Android:

Log in to messenger, go to cache management.
Files must be sorted by size before they can be deleted. Since cleaning WhatsApp on Android when the storage is full, it will turn out much faster if you start with the largest objects.
Mark all unnecessary pictures, videos, etc. and click "Delete", "Delete from me".

The user can delete all or individual objects in the cache, favorite messages and files, as well as their copies.

You can free up space without entering the cache as follows:

Open the "Chats" tab. Click on "Search".

Select "Photo", "Video", "GIF" or other under the search bar.

Click on the desired object, then on the ellipsis at the top of the screen.

Select "Delete". Can o. Click on "Delete from me".

On an iPhone

You can clear WhatsApp on an iPhone if the storage is full by going to the management or using the search bar in the "Chats" tab. You can delete objects using the cache as follows:

Through the WhatsApp settings, open the "Data", "Management" section.
Select one or more objects to delete. Just like on Android, objects can be sorted by size and frequency of receipt.
Click "Delete". The user can clear the cache completely, delete objects along with copies, leave only selected messages.

To delete files using the search, you need:

Go to the "Chats" tab and swipe down to open the search.
Select one of the file types under the search bar. Click on the desired object. Select "Delete", "Delete from me".

Desktop version

Finally, let's figure out how to delete a photo in WhatsApp from an interlocutor through the desktop version, whether this can be done in a browser or desktop application. Great news - such an opportunity exists! The instruction is the same for the application and the web version:

Find the chat and click on the arrow in the upper right corner of the picture;

A small menu will appear - select "Erase";
Click the Erase All button.

Be careful! On the network, you can find a lot of offers to remove the photo from the interlocutor in WhatsApp in a few months. We do not advise you to trust such sites - scammers are hiding behind such advertising. One of the arguments that the attackers offer is to clean up the messenger servers, this will guarantee the complete deletion of data.

Under no circumstances agree to pay for such services - remember that correspondence within the messenger is protected by end-to-end encryption. In simple words, only the sender and the recipient have access to the messages, even the developer cannot read the correspondence of users - all the more so third-party companies cannot do this. You are scammers!

We analyzed in detail the question of how to delete sent photos in WhatsApp from another person - it's not easy, there are certain limitations, but you found out the answer! If you want to erase the recipient's outgoing, act quickly.

How to delete media from whatsapp

Want to delete pics, videos etc from a WhatsApp chat and keep only texts? Here’s how

Tips & Tricks

Editor’s Pick

Trending Stories

How to delete unwanted WhatsApp media from your Android phone

Use the WhatsApp’s built-in storage tool

A few more useful tools that can help you get your media off WhatsApp

Files by Google

Save your photos to Google Photos

How to keep WhatsApp from hogging your phone storage in the future

Save a lot of space on WhatApp by turning off media auto-download

Hide your media visibility in the WhatsApp gallery

Use WhatsApp web if you live on your laptop

WhatsApp isn't the only game in town

How to delete media files and chat history from WhatsApp without any special software

Ways to delete data

Complete cleaning

Deleting only media files

Special object

How to delete text messages, photos or videos in a specific whatsapp chat.

How to delete WhatsApp chats?

Deleting photos in WhatsApp from the recipient

On the iPhone

On Android

How do I delete media from WhatsApp?

What is WhatsApp storage

How to open the cache

How do I block WhatsApp files from being saved to system memory?

Restoring a deleted message

How to transfer WhatsApp files to a memory card?

Part 3: Make a backup before deleting WhatsApp photos

How to clean WhatsApp

Android

On an iPhone

Desktop version

Learn more