WhatsApp is a great way to connect with friends and family but it can also be a source of spam. If you’re a part of several active WhatsApp groups, the images and videos sent by the participants can not only consume a lot of data to download but also pile up in your phone’s gallery app. Since organising the media gallery every day is impractical, disabling the visibility of the media downloaded from WhatsApp is a much better option. Here’s how you can stop WhatsApp from saving pictures on your phone.
Read Also: Top 8 ways to fix ‘WhatsApp images not showing in gallery’
In This Article
Before you begin
There are multiple ways you can go about this task. First, you need to decide whether you want the images to stop showing up on your phone’s gallery or prevent them from downloading altogether. By default, WhatsApp auto-downloads the media sent to you. While this is a very convenient feature, it can consume a lot of data.
If you just want to stop the pictures and videos from showing up on your phone’s gallery, WhatsApp has a system-wide option to disable media visibility on your phone. You can also choose to disable media visibility for specific chats. We recommend using this option for the most active chat groups on WhatsApp.
Stop WhatsApp from saving pictures on your phone’s gallery
Step 1: Launch WhatsApp on your phone and hit the ellipses at the top right corner of the screen.
Step 2: Tap on Settings and select Chats.
Step 3: Turn off the toggle switch for Media visibility.
Disable auto-downloads on WhatsApp
Step 1: Launch WhatsApp on your phone and hit the ellipses at the top right corner of the screen.
Step 2: Tap on Settings and select Storage and data.
Step 3: Go to the Media auto-download section and select No media for all three categories (When using mobile data, When connected on WiFi, When roaming).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do I keep WhatsApp from showing downloaded images on my phone’s gallery?
Go to WhatsApp>Settings>Chats and turn off the toggle switch for ‘Media visibility’.
How do I WhatsApp from showing downloaded images from one particular chat on my phone?
Launch WhatsApp, select a chat thread, tap on the person’s name at the top, tap on ‘Media visibility’ and select ‘No’.
How do I stop WhatsApp from auto-downloading images and videos?
Launch WhatsApp, go to Settings>Storage and data, and select ‘No media’ for every category under ‘Media auto-download’.
Read Also: Sony ULT FIELD 1 Review: It’s a keeper
Conclusion
This is how you can stop WhatsApp from saving and displaying the downloaded pictures and videos on your phone’s gallery app. Once you download an image on WhatsApp, it is saved to your phone’s internal storage even if you have disabled media visibility.
