How to Delete WhatsApp Files on an iPhone? – Learn to free up space

WhatsApp is a free application launched in 2009, and since then it has managed to penetrate as one of the most downloaded worldwide, being today a reference in communications since it allows instant messaging, both voice and video calls in real time and the possibility of sharing all kinds of multimedia files such as photos, audios and videos.

It is for this reason that it is also considered one of the main applications that tends to consume a large part of the available memory space of our devices.

What is the way to delete files without deleting the chats?

Being one of the most popular applications, it is normal that we have a lot of use of it and that one of the main and preferred forms of communication is through images and videos. it is common that we can see very compromised storage space of our devices when receiving a large number of them.

These files can be deleted from each WhatsApp conversation without this requiring the chat to disappear completely.

Delete Videos

The most practical thing to make room for us in our iPhone is deleting the videos that we have already seen and we do not need to keep that they are within a WhatsApp chat.

For this we must locate the chat by opening the application, Regardless of whether it is a group chat or an individual one, then we press the upper part of the chat where the name of the group or contact appears and we will see that it gives us access to an information section.

Once here we go where it says “Files, links and documents” and it will allow us to separately select all the files shared in the conversation, being able to delete the videos, images and other files from here, allowing us to free up space in the memory of our device.

Delete Photos

Photos can be removed from the chats individually from each chat in the same way as indicated above for the videos, although another way can be by scrolling through the chat and selecting each of the images that we want to delete. Holding them down and then selecting the ‘More’ option followed by ‘Delete’.

delete gifs

In WhatsApp for IPhone we have the possibility to add these GIFs to favorites by keeping them pressed once they are used in an individual or group chat and selecting that option. If it is the case that we no longer want any of them to appear in this selection, we just have to keep it pressed in this list and select option ‘Remove from Favorites’.

How do you free up WhatsApp storage space?

There are several ways to free up storage space busy by WhatsApp. One of them is checking the space occupied from the main settings of the phone, which gives us information about the space occupied by each application and allows us to uninstall or delete it if we wish, freeing up space on our device.

Clean from the App settings

To free up space directly from the application we must enter its configuration. Once here we go to the section “Storage and data” followed by the option “Manage Storage”

From this option we can visualize a kind of graph that tells us the amount of space it occupies the application on our iPhone along with the available space.

In this same configuration window you can see, classified in another group, files that weigh 5 or more megabytes. If we mark there, it will allow us to select the ones that we no longer need and thus be eliminated.

Usually in this filegroup we will find mostly videos, which are the ones that almost always consume the most storage space on our devices. Finally, we will find a group of files that are the “Forwarded many times”.

That, as its name indicates, intended for mostly common files and that reach us by means of chains or information widely spread to our group or individual chats.

What happens if WhatsApp cache is cleared?

The cache it is basically a set of frequently used data temporarily stored by the application, to make it faster. Despite this, they can be cumulative and fill a medium space in the main memory of the device.

Its circumstantial cleaning does not affect the operation of the application or the device, and does not delete conversations nor multimedia content that we have in any chat of our WhatsApp, so it is recommended to do it regularly without this representing a risk for its operation.

Find out how much space WhatsApp takes up on your iPhone

The easiest way to see the space that this app occupies on the iPhone is to enter the main menu of the device, locate the access to “Settings” followed by “General” and then “Device storage”. Once here we will see the total space occupied by each application.

If we select WhatsApp in this section we can see, not only the total storage, but also the detail of each one of the multimedia files that we have in the application classified by chat and the individual space occupied by each one of them.

Remove automatic file download to use less space

Another element that may be increasing the amount of space used by WhatsApp on our iPhone is the automatic saving function of media files to gallery or “Reel”, which causes the device to immediately download any video or photo that reaches our chats without having to authorize it.

To eliminate this option we must enter the application directly, we look for the ‘Settings’ and select ‘Chats’. There we must uncheck the “Save in photos” option, which frees us from that storage, often unnecessary, and allows us to decide which incoming files to our chats we want to keep.

All these methods must be taken into account to make more optimal and lasting use of our precious storage space in the memory of our iPhone devices.