Billions of photos are shared daily via WhatsApp, and some of these end up in our galleries. Many people like me (before today) don’t turn off media ‘auto download’ in WhatsApp settings because it becomes tedious to manually download photos every time.
In-comes group chats where everyone is free to share media. The problem is all the shared photos end up in our galleries (without a sieve). Every single image and videos that the group members shares end up in your phone gallery. Soon the phone gallery is filled with images (some inappropriate) that were shared in WhatsApp groups.
So how do you stop WhatsApp groups photos from filling up your gallery? To solve this problem you can use a certain unheralded WhatsApp feature where you can see the photos in the WhatsApp group chat only. I mean, with this feature you will on get to see the sent images of group members in the group chat only and not in your phone gallery.
Here’s how to tweak WhatsApp settings to stop WhatsApp Group photos from filling up your phone gallery
- Open the group chat
- Click on 3 vertical dots shown on the right top corner in the group.
- Click on the first option i.e. “Group Info”
- Click on the “Media visibility” from the available options
- Change from the default (written “Default Yes) option to the “No” option
Now the media will not be saved in your phone. As I said before, the photos will now only display in your group chats.
You can use it for individual/personal chats too
You can use this feature for not only group chats but even individual/personal chats as well. I only used the group chats as an example because I think that’s where the most unsolicited photos are received from as compared to individual/personal chats.
However, if you still don’t want to see photos sent in the individual/personal chats in your gallery, you can tweak the settings too. In that case, the process is pretty much the same, only that instead of clicking on “Group Info” you will be clicking on “View Contact”. You can then finish the rest in the same way as you do with group chats.
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So where will Whatsapp be storing the media instead of one’s gallery? I am sure it has to sit somewhere e.g. temporary folder then deleted afterwards, encrypted folder in a different location on the gadget, the cloud?
I’m sure the media will still be in your phone, maybe even in the same place it always was, just not visible in your gallery.
You can do this process manually by placing a
.nomedia file in any folder. The contents of that folder will not show up in any media player or gallery app .
Wow! Thanks for the tip. Magic.
This is very wrong and a bad piece of advice.
I’ve seen it making rounds on WhatsApp. This feature does not save space on your phone. The images are still stored on your phone. and still use your phone memory.
They are just hidded from the Gallery Apps. If you open the file manager and go to the WhatsApp/Media/Images folder, you now see 2 folders. The Private folder stores your So called hidden images.
Its just meant to hide your nude selfies from the Gallery. It does not save you any space on your phone.
Somebody, TZ Editor, delete this lie of a story.
The media is STILL STORED ON THE PHONE but the WhatsApp media folder has an addition folder marked “private” and items in there can only be viewed in their relevant group or chat of origin while not being viewable in the phones main gallery. GO CHECK YOUR WHATSAPP FOLDERS USING A FILE MANAGER you will see the files in there. You are spreading pure falsehoods. But the file itself is still taking up the same amount of space – shocking that a person who writes a tech blog doesn’t understand this. The fall of TECHZIM continues…
Nice one, i enjoyed it