One of the most common problems that we encounter when using the application of WhatsApp It has to do with the large amount of content we receive in individual and group chats, such as audio, video, photos, etc., which take up space on our mobile device, and which can cause our terminal's memory to run out. fill it out completely if we don't delete them on a regular basis.
For this reason, it is necessary to know the best solution to avoid this problem, and it is to know how to prevent photos or videos from being downloaded on WhatsApp, so that you are the one who chooses when you want the photos, videos or audios that you are interested in having to be downloaded, and that you can ignore those that you know will not arouse any interest.
In this way you will be able to avoid storage problems on your mobile phone, in addition to the security that it will imply with respect to fraudulent actions carried out through the instant messaging app, since in this way you will prevent them from being downloaded and stored in your device files that may contain some type of virus inside. Also, before explaining how to prevent photos or videos from being downloaded on WhatsApp we remind you of the importance of download content only from trusted senders.
How to block automatic downloads of photos and videos on WhatsApp
If you want to know how to prevent photos or videos from being downloaded on WhatsApp The process to follow is very simple to carry out, both in the case that you are using iOS and Android. In this case, keep in mind that blocking downloads does not mean that you cannot see the contents that your contacts send you, but what will happen is that they will not be automatically saved in the memory of your smartphone, so that unless you decide to download it yourself, they will not. That said, we explain the steps to follow in both operating systems:
Android
In the event that you want to block automatic downloads of photos and videos in WhatsApp from an Android operating system, the process to follow is very simple, being able to choose between different options. In this case, the steps to follow are the following:
- First of all you will have to open the WhatsApp application on your mobile phone.
- Then go to Settings, for which you will have to click on the three points that you will find at the top of the screen.
- Once you have done the above, it will be time to go to the option Data and storage that you will see on the menu.
- Now you will have to look for the second adjustment section, called Automatic download.
- When you have clicked on it you will find three different options: download with mobile data / download with WiFi / In data roaming.
- You must click on any of these options, as you are interested, and you will find a new pop-up window, in which the following four boxes will appear that you can select: photos / audio / videos / documents.
There you can mark the options you want within each of the three different sections for downloading files with mobile data, WiFi or data roaming. In this way, you will be able to mark that with an internet connection via WiFi you download photos but not videos, or vice versa, or that with mobile data the audios are automatically downloaded, but not the rest of the content.
However, in our case, what are we going to explain to you? how to prevent photos or videos from being downloaded on WhatsApp, What you should do is go to each of the mentioned options and deselect all checkboxes. In this way, none of these contents will be discarded automatically.
In this way, once you deactivate these automatic downloads, you will have to be the one who clicks on each file when you are interested in downloading content.
iOS
If instead of having a device with the Android operating system you have an Apple terminal, that is, a mobile device with the iOS operating system, you can also configure the downloads in this so that the memory of your terminal is not flooded with files that you do not want. are interested or do not need. The steps are similar to the Android case. So if you want to know how to prevent photos or videos from being downloaded on WhatsApp, you must do the following:
- First of all you will have to open WhatsApp on your iOS mobile device, on your iPhone.
- Now go to the button Configuration in the app, which you will find in the lower right corner of the screen.
- Now go to the section called Storage and data
- After clicking on it you will find that there are four options on the screen, which are the following: Photos / audio / videos / Documents, as you can see in the following image:
- Now you just have to click on each of them to determine the settings for each of the options, as you can see in the following image:
The only difference it has with respect to Android is that in this case you will have to go to each of the types of content that can be downloaded to choose if you want them to be downloaded automatically with WiFi, with WiFi and Mobile Data, or Never, which will be the option that we have to press in case we want to know how to prevent photos or videos from being downloaded on WhatsApp.
In this way, you already know how to carry out the procedure on both Android and iOS to prevent your smartphone from filling up with documents and files that you really do not want to have. This is very interesting to take into account, especially if you are a member of several groups in which content that does not interest you is usually sent. In this way you will be able to save space on your mobile device and you will only be able to store that content that, for one reason or another, you are interested in keeping.