WhatsApp is one of the most popular messenger services in this country – the storage requirements of many users are correspondingly large. The service will therefore soon expand the possibilities for users to better select the media content to be deleted. Since many users now send and receive photos and videos practically every day, services such as WhatsApp are taking up more and more storage space on the iPhone. The large number of voice messages also ensure that the messenger on smartphones is becoming more and more popular.
New storage management helps delete media files
Although users already have the option of deleting content that is no longer required via the settings and thus freeing up storage space, photos and videos can only be selected very generally via the settings. Via “Settings> Data and memory usage> Memory usage” it is possible to select individually for each chat and each group whether photos, videos or other space-consuming content should be deleted. However, each content category (such as “Photos”) is removed in one go. The principle is: all or nothing. Accordingly, there is hardly any opportunity to select the content to be deleted and, for example, to keep individual photos. In order to make individual selections, the detour via the respective chat is necessary (“media, links and docs”).
WhatsApp will soon offer a new storage management system that will overcome this limitation. With the new storage management that WhatsApp is gradually making available to all users, the photos or videos to be removed can be specifically selected in the app settings. The application provides a new file browser, the user interface of which is reminiscent of applications such as Apple Photos – including visual aids such as thumbnails. In addition, categories such as “Often forwarded” or “Larger than 5 MB” help to quickly identify duplicates or content that takes up a lot of space.
More convenience when removing content
A check mark can be used to determine which photos, videos or other content should be removed. Alternatively, it is still possible to delete everything in one go. This gives users greater control over what content remains and what is removed in the app settings.
According to WhatsApp, the new feature will be distributed to users in bursts. It can therefore take a while until the extended functions of the new storage management are available to everyone. By the end of the week, the feature should be available across the board.