Home » How To » How To Stop WhatsApp From Saving Photos Automatically To Gallery Or Camera Roll On Android And iPhone
by Akshay Thapliyal
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WhatsApp has currently more than 1 billion users, where people send messages, share photos, videos, locations, and other files with their contacts.
As people receive long the WhatsApp app from the Play Store, followts of photos from their contacts, they look for ways to stop WhatsApp from saving pictures to the gallery. As there could be private or other personal photos that you do not want others to see when you hand over your phone to someone.
One way is to stop WhatsApp from Auto downloading photos and videos but still when a user views it on WhatsApp, it will appear in the Gallery. So to avoid that you can even hide WhatsApp images from Gallery or Camera Roll in Android and iPhone.
Contents
This will stop all the images from showing on the Camera Roll of your iPhone.
You can also watch this video:
After updating the WhatsApp app from the Play Store, follow the steps below.
You can change either default settings that will be applied to all your WhatsApp chats or you can set individual settings on per chat basis.
From now, the received media from all the Chats will stay in WhatsApp only and won’t show in your phone’s Gallery. The photos and videos received earlier when the setting was enabled will still be there and will only be applied to newly downloaded media.
It is also possible to configure the setting on a chat-to-chat basis.
The option you set above becomes the default one for all the chats. But there are always exceptions. You might want to show media from certain contacts in your Gallery or vice versa. You can do that as well. Here’s how.
Similarly, you can do so for other contacts as well.
We receive all sorts of photos and videos on WhatsApp that don’t deserve to be on our phone’s Gallery to be seen by everyone. To take care of this, you can go ahead and use the Media Visibility feature.
You can also check our video:
As mentioned earlier WhatsApp also allows you to prevent from saving the images/videos automatically. If you are not aware of this setting then here we have shared the steps to stop WhatsApp from auto-downloading photos, videos, and other file types on Android and iPhone.
The type of media that you want to automatically download is up to you. You can adjust the settings according to your preference.
Similarly, you can prevent auto-saving when connected to Wi-Fi and when you are on roaming as well.
Also Read: How to Take WhatsApp Backup Using Mobile Data Instead Of WiFi
You can do the same for other file types.
With this, the next time you receive a photo or video it won’t download until you tap on it to initialize the download.
If you happen to use WhatsApp for calling a lot then you can lower data usage on that too. Follow the steps here.
And if your WhatsApp notifications stopped working, read our instructions about how to fix it.
WhatsApp photos are showing in the gallery because your WhatsApp settings are set in such a way. to disable it, go to Settings > Storage and Data > Media auto-download and disable it.
I hope the above methods helped Android and iPhone users to stop WhatsApp from saving pictures to Gallery or Camera Roll or disable auto-downloading of media. If you have a similar issue with the backup, read our post about how to stop WhatsApp backup.
If you want to know more tips and tricks for WhatsApp, check out this post. And if you are concerned about privacy such as who can see your Last Seen status, this article can help you.
If you have faced any issues while following the above steps, do let us know via comments.
WhatsApp is a free messaging application, owned by Facebook, that allows users to send text messages, voice and video calls, images, other media files and user location.
It is particularly well-known app, having over a billion users, and for many has become the preferred contact app of choice – some 60 billion messages are sent over the WhatsApp platform every day. Its popularity is partly due to the fact that it’s an encrypted service, meaning only you and the person you’re communicating with can read the messages you send to each other. It is therefore seen as one of the most secure and private ways to communicate.
However, although users can send as many media rich messages as they want, with no costs, even internationally, (unlike with SMS) one of its quirks is that when you download the app it automatically downloads and stores every media file received.
For those of us that already struggle with phone storage space this can be quite frustrating, especially when you look down at your phone and realize there have been 105 new messages, 75 of which are pictures, from that one group chat…
But switching off the toggle that controls automatic media downloads from WhatsApp is relatively easy on both an Android and Apple phones.
Below we have outlined the way to stop WhatsApp automatically downloading ALL media files.
To prevent all media files downloading on an iPhone:
If committing to this seems too much, it is also possible to switch off media downloads from one chat at a time, giving you more flexibility if you do want some images/videos to be saved.
To prevent media files from one chat for an iPhone:
This process will need to be repeated for each contact or group where you want to switch the automatic downloads off.
To prevent all media files downloading on an Android:
Preventing WhatsApp automatically downloading ALL media files is slightly different on an Android as it relies on settings involving Wi-Fi and Data, rather than a specific button in the app.
To prevent media files from one chat for Android:
We hope you found this guide useful.
If you have problems when trying to stop WhatsApp from automatically downloading and saving media files into your camera roll, feel free to drop a comment below
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How to turn off autosave of photos to iPhone and Android gallery in Whatsapp
Incoming images and videos will no longer be saved to the Camera Roll.
…
How to turn off automatic uploading of photos and videos in WhatsApp for iPhone
How to stop WhatsApp media from being stored in the phone gallery
From your profile menu, go to the "Settings" section. Open Notifications. Press the "Sound" button located in the "WhatsApp Call" section. Select "Mute".
Launch WhatsApp and go to the "Settings" of the program by touching the corresponding icon in the lower right corner of the screen.
Open the settings section called "Data and storage". The category of settings we are interested in is titled "AUTO LOAD MEDIA" - tap here "Photo".
We will immediately give an answer to the question of where Whatsapp photos are stored - in the smartphone gallery, with any download method they will be transferred there.
…
Android
How to enable or disable auto download and sync
In the upper right corner of the screen, tap your profile picture or initial icon. Autoload and sync. Enable or disable auto download and sync.
On Android smartphones, you can easily turn off automatic saving of files sent by your contacts.
Open WhatsApp and go to the "Settings" menu. Navigate to the "Data & Storage" section and look for the "Media Startup" category.
To turn off iCloud Photos on all devices:
How to turn off backup in WhatsApp
To save media files to a memory card, you need to:
