How to stop WhatsApp from saving media to your phone

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WhatsApp automatically saves received media to your device's local storage. The Media visibility option is turned on by default.

Stop saving media from all chats

To stop WhatsApp from automatically saving media to your device's local storage:
  1. Tap
    more options
    > Settings > Chats.
  2. Turn off Media visibility.
If you've turned Media visibility off, you can turn it back on at any time if you want to revert to WhatsApp automatically downloading media.
Note: Changing this setting won’t affect any previous auto-download choices you’ve made for specific chats or groups.

Stop saving media from specific chats or groups

You can also adjust your settings for saving incoming media from specific individual or group chats.
  1. From the Chats tab, tap an individual or group chat.
  2. Tap the contact or group name to see Contact info or Group info.
  3. Tap Media visibility > No > OK.
Note: On Android, media files are automatically saved in your WhatsApp media folder. If you have internal storage, the WhatsApp folder is located in your internal storage. If you don’t have internal storage, the folder will be on your SD card or external SD card.
You can also create a .nomedia file in the WhatsApp images folder. Please note this will hide all your WhatsApp photos from your phone's gallery.

To create a .nomedia file

  1. Download a file explorer from the Google Play Store.
  2. In the file explorer, go to Images/WhatsApp Images/.
  3. Create a file named .nomedia, including the period.
  4. If you want to view your photos in your phone's gallery later, simply delete the .nomedia file.

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