How to make WhatsApp photos not take up space

There is two possibilitiesto stop your WhatsApp photos from taking up space on your phone: via Google Photos and with WhatsApp itself. We’ll go through both now.

Via Google Photos

Download and install Google Photos (although it comes pre-installed on most terminals) using the button below.

Once you’ve done that, open the application. Once in, click the menu button in the top-right corner of the screen):

Google Photos main viewGoogle Photos main view

Then click Settings:

Google photos menuGoogle photos menu

Now click Back up & sync:

Google photos settingsGoogle photos settings

Activate the backup and synchronization of your photos (the control button must be blue):

Cloud storage enabledCloud storage enabled

Now that the backup is enabled, click on the tab Albums:

Google photo navigation buttonsGoogle photo navigation buttons

Now click on WhatsApp Images

View albums on Google PhotosView albums on Google Photos

Now look at the top part of the screen, at the controls of Backup & Sync:

Cloud backup button for a folderCloud backup button for a folder

Press the control button to activate it (remember it has to be blue):

Backup enabledBackup enabled

From now on, Google Photos will store all the photos in your WhatsApp Pictures folder in the cloud. Plus, every time someone sends you a new photo, it’s copied and synced to your cloud storage. You will receive a notification when the sync is complete, so you can then delete all WhatsApp photos from your device.

Via whatsapp

The best way to prevent photos from taking up space on WhatsApp is to prevent them from being downloaded. By default, the messaging loads App everything sent to us automatically, but we can change this behavior. To do this, open WhatsApp and click on the menu button:

WhatsApp main screenWhatsApp main screen

Click now Settings:

WhatsApp drop down menuWhatsApp drop down menu

Next, under Data and storage usage:

Whatsapp settingsWhatsapp settings

We now look at the section Media auto-download an:

Standard save optionsStandard save options

We have to go into the three options (When using mobile data, When connected on Wi-Fi, When roaming) and disable all categories that appear when clicking each option:

Change save optionsChanging save options

When you’re done, each option has the preference not average: Show.

WhatsApp storage offWhatsApp storage off

And that’s it. Any content sent to WhatsApp (not just photos) will no longer be automatically downloaded to your device, so it won’t take up space.

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