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WhatsApp Will Soon Let You Manage Storage on a Per-Chat Basis

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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WhatsApp is developing a feature that will let users micro-manage the storage taken up by shared files in individual chat threads, greatly expanding the current storage management tools offered by the Meta-owned app.

Whatsapp-Feature.jpg

In its existing form, WhatsApp lets you manage storage globally by going to Settings ➝ Storage and Data ➝ Manage Storage, where files and media can be browsed from every conversation.

There's also a "Media, Links, and Docs" option within each chat's info page where you can look at all of the shared files in a conversation, but it doesn't tell you how much space each file takes up.

To improve the situation, a new "Manage Storage" option has been added directly to the chat info page in the latest WhatsApp beta. As spotted by WaBetaInfo, the new section shows you how much storage each conversation takes up on your device. You can also view a grid of media shared within a chat, including photos, videos, and documents, organized by file size. There are also sorting options like "Newest," "Oldest," and "Largest" to help quickly locate specific items.

Whatsapp_MANAGE_STORAGE_FROM_THE_CHAT_INFO_SCREEN_FEATURE_IOS.jpeg

The change should make it easier to learn which files are taking up the most storage on your device within a given conversation, rather than having to trawl through a global gallery of files to find them. It's not clear when the new storage management tool will go live for users, but given its advanced development progress in the beta, we shouldn't have to wait too long.

Article Link: WhatsApp Will Soon Let You Manage Storage on a Per-Chat Basis
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/28/whatsapp-manage-storage-per-chat-basis/
  • Like
Reactions: Apple Knowledge Navigator and Mity
I will greet better control of the storage as it's taking a lot of space on my devices and only options is to "delete all" now. :)
 
Oh thank god, this is literally the number one issue that causes problems with older relatives phones (both iOS and Android) when a group chat uses up their entire storage with garbage but they don't want to lose images of their grandkids.
 
Everyone I know uses Facebook Messenger but for whatever reason that's being discontinued in a month or so, so we'll see if everyone moves to WhatsApp. It's a much better app but no one I know uses it. But there isn't really anything else out there (iMessage doesn't count – I can't force all my hundreds of friends/family/colleagues to use Apple devices when almost none of them do).
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: The Phazer
I use iMessage with close family, as we started chatting that way before WA became popular. However, I use WA with almost everyone else (here in Europe).

The advantage of WA is that it's a separate, dedicated app.

I've never liked the fact iMessage is blended into SMS messages, and FaceTime is blended into phone calls. For some people, this can get confusing as I've known one example of someone phoning a very long distance number and racking up quite the phone bill as they called rather than FaceTime audio'd.
 
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Reactions: crisneat
It would be great if we can choose the back up location IN THE APP. Maybe I want my chats in Google Drive or OneDrive or DropBox or whatever. GoodNotes allows this and I'm not sure why WhatsApp cannot as well. It would be so much easier to switch to/from iOS/Android if they did this.
 
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Reactions: Demonknight
iBluetooth said:
I will greet better control of the storage as it's taking a lot of space on my devices and only options is to "delete all" now. :)
Click to expand...
WhatsApp already has great tools to clean up your storage compared to pretty much every other app out there. Definitely much more options than just "delete all".
 
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Reactions: Radin.Y
‎WhatsApp’s storage management options faaar exceed iMessage’s.
Sadly, iMessage is buggy, inconsistent, and inconvenient. Would love to use it more, but Apple hasn’t fixed iMessage issues that I have personally continuously experienced year after year.
 
  • Like
Reactions: crisneat
baryon said:
Everyone I know uses Facebook Messenger but for whatever reason that's being discontinued in a month or so, so we'll see if everyone moves to WhatsApp. It's a much better app but no one I know uses it. But there isn't really anything else out there (iMessage doesn't count – I can't force all my hundreds of friends/family/colleagues to use Apple devices when almost none of them do).
Click to expand...
You’re misunderstood. Meta is discontinuing the desktop application for Messenger. It will continue working on the web on your desktop.
They won’t discontinue the Messenger mobile app. It’s too popular.
 
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Reactions: Mr. Heckles, The Phazer and GoodTimeNotALongTime
I don't understand exactly, I think this feature was there before. Later they introduced this new "manage data" feature which removed that. I remember that I was opening a chat, and was able to remove all videos while keeping the photos in it.
 
Must have been super easy to implement.

Just let users remove anything from their device knowing they can always re-connect to WhatsApp servers to download conversations they will store indefinitely. Free of charge even. 😉
 
Good, but I wish they also let us keep a blurred placeholder instead of fully deleting the media elements, so conversations wouldn't have any "orphaned" messages.
 
It's high time apple allowed you to archive chats.

Also - get this - Apple doesn't (last time I checked) combine copies of videos in iCloud. Send the same video to ten people? That's ten copies of that video in iCloud. No joke.
 
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