Free up space in Whatsapp and delete photos and videos from the archive

WhatsApp is the main cause of running out of space on the phone, because it keeps all the files received in the various chats in the internal memory: all the photos, videos, audio messages sent and received on our phone in groups and in individual conversations remain in the memory of the smartphone, unless we proceed to delete them manually.
Many of the photos and videos received in WhatsApp do not appear in the phone’s photo and video gallery and remain visible only in conversations and chats, it is very easy to forget to perform this cleaning operation. The phone memory fills silently, unnoticed, until it runs out over time.
To overcome this problem and free up space on WhatsAppespecially on Android phones (but even iPhones are not immune to the problem), until now it was possible to use external applications for delete images from groups and chatswhile it is now possible to use a new application option per clean WhatsApp and delete everything.
Let’s see in this guide how to free up space in WhatsApp and clean archive usage to recover a lot of internal memory.

Free up space in WhatsApp from Android

In order to free up the space occupied by WhatsApp files, open the app on our smartphone, press the top right on the menu with the three dots, then on Settings and finally we press on Space and data.

In the new screen we click on Manage Space to see i larger files stored by Whatsapp (over 5 MB), i files forwarded many times (i.e. that they have been shot and sent several times by Whatsapp users) and then also the list of chats opened in WhatsApp, both groups and individuals, sorted by the size occupied in the internal memory (the most voluminous chats will be at the top of the list).
By tapping on one of the images, you will be able to see the complete list of files forwarded many times or photos of videos that are more than 5MB in memory, listed by the largest. It will then be possible to delete them if they no longer interest us or if we have saved them in a backup
By tapping on one of the conversations instead You can see photos, videos, voicemails, GIFs, documents, listed by the largest, sent or received in that conversation and then delete the superfluous to free up space on your phone. In the list will be visible To see the detail of what it is composed of and, therefore, the number of text messages that counts, the number of contact cards shared, the location shares. You can then view the overall size of the exchanged photos, GIFs, videos, voice messages and documents. To carry out a complete cleaning, all we have to do is press the button Select all at the top right in a list of files. In the options of Manage Space it is also possible to disable the automatic download of media (photos, audio and videos), so as to download these data only if they are touched; this is useful on phones with limited storage space (less than 64GB), so that you can avoid having to end up with memory full sooner than expected.

Also on Android smartphones we can increase the space available by using an additional microSD, as seen in our guides Move files to SD (Android) freeing internal memory e Choose the best MicroSD for Android smartphones.

Free up space in WhatsApp from iPhone

If we use a smartphone iPhone as the main phone for WhatsApp, we can free up space by opening the app, pressing the bottom right on the menu Settings and taking us in the same path seen for Android, that is Space and data > Manage Space.

Files and chat list are also listed here by overall size of stored files and it is possible to delete all photos, videos and all files of each conversation by pressing at the bottom on Manage space and erasing all superfluous or heavy elements.

Unfortunately on the iPhone it is not possible to insert a microSD to expand the internal memory, but we can get more space to use for WhatsApp (or other apps) by reading our guide IPhone space management: empty memory and full storage.

Other ways to free up space

While the methods we’ve seen so far are great for seeing which chats take up the most memory space on your phone, if you want check what to delete and then not delete all messages with images and videos (maybe even photos and videos that you absolutely want to keep), it is possible, on Android, to open the various conversations in which multiple messages are received, touch the button at the top right with three dots and then press on Media (if it’s a single chat) or Group average to see all the photos and videos shared and stored by that chat.
On the iPhone, the same list can be found by opening a conversation, then tapping the chat title and then pressing on Media, Links and Documents. By doing so we can selectively clean WhatsApp, delete only the photos and videos that we do not care to keep and free up space occupied by the files received.

Another method to be able to quickly recover occupied space is the use of apps for cleaning unnecessary and large files; the Android and iOS stores are full of these programs, but if we want to try a really effective app for Android right away, we recommend installing SD Maid.

Using this app we will be able to immediately view all the files, databases and folders that occupy more space on our phone, so as to proceed with a complete and effective cleaning, able to recover even several GigaBytes (especially on devices that we did not clean from a few months).
On the iPhone instead we can use the Clean Doctor app, available for free.

This powerful app will allow you to analyze the space occupied by all the files and folders on the iPhone and to delete the most voluminous photo collections and the largest video files (we will almost certainly find much of the material right in the WhatsApp folders).
By doing so we will be able in a few taps on the screen to free up space in WhatsApp and lighten the archive generated by the app itself, without having to give up precious files or some apps.

Conclusions

The problem of space can also arise on new phones and with 256 GB of memory, just do not realize the amount of video files, GIFs and images shared or uploaded and, when we least expect it, we will end up with a WhatsApp unusable or that does not allow you to send or download new multimedia content.
Precisely to avoid this bad scenario, we regularly clean WhatsApp as indicated in the previous chapters, so as not to run the risk of filling up all the memory of our portable device.

If we are afraid that WhatsApp cleaning may delete important photos or videos, we invite you to save the contents with an online backup, as seen in our guide Automatic Photo Backup to keep them safe online.
If we have accidentally deleted a chat or a group that also contained some very important photos or messages, we advise you not to waste time and read our article on how Recover deleted WhatsApp messages and history.