For being one of the most popular messaging apps, WhatsApp is a magnet for unwanted media. Since it is quite convenient and free to send any kind of media on WhatsApp, people end up with cluttered devices. It makes sense to schedule some time to delete unnecessary media periodically. If you do not know already, learn how to delete unwanted WhatsApp media from your Android phone.
How to delete unwanted WhatsApp media from your Android phone?
From phone’s gallery
Media received from other people on WhatsApp are automatically saved in the phone’s gallery under the WhatsApp folder unless you have made changes in the WhatsApp settings. The good news is that it is easy to access and clean it up. Here is how:
- Open the Photos app or phone’s gallery
- Look for the WhatsApp Video and WhatsApp Images folders or albums
- Open them and select the images and videos you want to remove
- Delete them accordingly
- You may also open the WhatsApp Animated Gifs folder and delete content from there too
- Then go to the trash folder and empty it to delete everything forever
Accessing hidden media to delete them
Some media received on WhatsApp are saved in hidden folders as well and hence cannot be seen in the gallery. To remove them as well, do the following:
- Open the file browser on your phone
- Go to the internal storage
- Access the folder under Android>com.whatsapp>WhatsApp>Media
- You would find a list of sent and received media including documents, audio, voice notes, stickers, videos, images, and GIFs
- There would be Private and Sent subfolders under each folder
- While the first subfolder has media from archived conversations the second subfolder has media that was shared with others
- Choose and delete the files and media you want to get rid of
- Empty the trash afterward
- If you do not need anything within the folders, you can delete them altogether as WhatsApp automatically creates them
- You can also star mark the folders you need to clean often
Clearing your cache
Clearing the cache would not remove media but should make the app run much smoother. It would delete all the temporary files from the phone. Find out how it is done:
- Open Settings
- Click on Apps
- Find WhatsApp
- Choose Storage
- Click on Clear cache
Freeing up space on your mobile phone would make it run faster as well. Moreover, clutter makes important things to get misplaced in the huge pile of data. Let us know in the comments section below if you have any other trick up your sleeves on how to delete unwanted WhatsApp media from your Android phone.
