How to delete photos from whatsapp group


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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Delete all Media (Photos, Videos or GIFs) from WhatsApp Group or Chat

Funny photos, memes and festive greetings in WhatsApp Groups can fill up phone storage. You can get back your lost storage by deleting all media (photos, videos, documents) from WhatsApp Chat or group.

WhatsApp is a famous messaging app used by billions of smartphone users globally. Back in July 2017, WhatsApp announced 1.3 billion active users from 180 countries. Apart from the text messages, WhatsApp users also share media (including photos, videos, GIFs, contacts, locations, audio messages and documents).

A large part of media received in WhatsApp Groups is often funny, political or promotional. Else it is one of the Good Morning, Good Night or Festive greetings. However, due to the default settings of WhatsApp, all media is automatically downloaded and stored when you are connected to a WiFi network.

This happens even if you have muted the group and haven’t checked it for months. You do not realize all the media files until the day when your phone’s storage is all full. Deleting media files individually (via gallery) is no longer an easy task at this point.

Contents

Manage WhatsApp Storage (For Android Users)

You know that some contacts and groups are notorious for sending too much of memes and videos. So, you decide that it is safe to delete all media from this person or group. But how do you go ahead now? It is going to take a lot of time and energy to mark each file and delete it. Worry not.. there’s a quick and easy solution!

Thankfully, WhatsApp has a “Storage Usage” feature which lets you find which groups and chats are using how much of your storage. It also lets you to bulk delete all media files shared in the group. Let’s jump into the details.

Delete media from a chat or group using “Storage Usage”

  1. Open WhatsApp on your Android phone.
  2. Go to WhatsApp Settings by tapping on the 3 vertical dots and choosing “Settings“.
  3. Now tap on “Data and storage usage” and choose “Storage usage“.
    WhatsApp will take some time to analyze the database and calculate how much storage space is being used by each group/chat. Storage used by different chats/groups
  4. Tap on the group/contact for which you want to delete all the media files. You can use the search functionality if you have a lot of contacts or groups.
    WhatsApp will now show you how many media files exist on your phone and how much space is being used by each media type. So, you can see Photos, GIFs, Videos, Audio and Documents.
  5. Tap on “Manage Messages” at the bottom and select (using the checkbox) the media which you want to delete. By default, all items are checked. Those with the checkbox checked means that they are selected for deletion.
    NOTE: Uncheck Text Messages else you will lose the text chats as well. Uncheck the items which you want to keep

Stop WhatsApp from Automatically Downloading Media

Do you know that WhatsApp has the options to disable media auto download? This not only helps you save data, but also your phone’s storage space.

With auto-download disabled, you will only download the media when you are active in a chat/group (by tapping on the media file). Hence, the media which you are never going to see will not be downloaded. So, it is a good idea to disable auto-download, especially for video files which are larger. Here are the steps:

  1. Open WhatsApp > options > Settings.
  2. Tap on “Data and storage usage”.
  3. Under the heading “Media auto-download”, choose the media which you wish to auto-download over WiFi and cellular data.
    I have all auto-download disabled as in the screenshot below. Manage what media to auto-download

Delete Memes & Greetings Images using Google’s “Files Go” app

Files Go is an app developed by Google which helps in identifying images with greetings and memes. Simply download the app from the link below, launch it and follow the instructions to free up your storage,

[appbox googleplay com. google.android.apps.nbu.files]

TagsFilesGo Google Storage Cleaner WhatsApp

How to delete a photo in WhatsApp