While WhatsApp is one of the most popular social apps of the present time, it can consume a lot of space on the device. For instance, if you have been using WhatsApp for a long time, then it can accumulate a lot of storage on your phone. If WhatsApp is taking too much space on your phone, then you have come to the right place. In this post, I’m going to let you know how to reduce WhatsApp storage on iPhone and Android in every possible way.
Part 1: Backup WhatsApp Data from iPhone/Android to your Computer
If you don’t want to lose your important chats but do WhatsApp free up space on your phone, then you should take its backup. For this, you can use MobileTrans – WhatsApp Transfer. It is a user-friendly and intuitive desktop application that would let you back up your WhatsApp data to your computer.
The application will save your chats, attachments, voice note, stickers, group info, and every other kind of app data. You can maintain different versions of the WhatsApp backup and can later restore it to the device of your choice. To learn how to reduce WhatsApp storage on iPhone or Android, the following steps can be taken:
Step 1: Launch MobileTrans – WhatsApp Transfer
Firstly, you can just install and launch MobileTrans on your computer and visit the “Backup&Restore” module. Go to the WhatsApp section and choose it to backup your WhatsApp messages from here.
Step 2: Connect your iOS or Android device
Now, using working USB or lightning cables, you can simply connect your Android/iOS device to the computer. In no time, MobileTrans will detect it and would also display its snapshot here.
Step 3: Backup WhatsApp data to your computer
To save your WhatsApp files to your system, just click on the “Start” button and let the application save your data. While iPhone users don’t need to take any further steps, Android users have to launch WhatsApp on their devices. Now, you can go to its Settings > Chats > Chat Backup and choose to backup WhatsApp data.
After the backup has been completed, you can launch WhatsApp, log in to your account again, and choose to restore the recently taken back up here.
That’s it! Once the backup process is completed, MobileTrans will let you know. Now, you can safely disconnect the device and manually get rid of all the WhatsApp data to free up space.
Part 2: How to Reduce WhatsApp Storage Manually?
To learn how to reduce WhatsApp storage on iPhone or Android manually, the following suggestions can be implemented.
Fix 1: Check the WhatsApp Storage Location
If you have an Android device, then you can visit the WhatsApp storage location and manually remove any file of your choice. For this, you just need to launch a File Explorer app and go to its Internal Storage > WhatsApp > Media. Here, you can explore and delete photos, videos, documents, etc. that can be accumulating a lot of space on your phone.
Fix 2: Clear Data from WhatsApp
Apart from that, WhatsApp also allows us to clear data from the app itself. The interface might be a bit different for iOS and Android, but the overall procedure is the same. If WhatsApp is taking too much space, then launch the app and go to its Settings > Data and Storage Usage > Storage Usage.
Here, it will display a list of contacts and groups with their data usage. You can tap on any contact of your choice from here and choose to clear the data (documents, photos, and videos). You can do it manually for every contact to free up space on WhatsApp easily.
Fix 3: Disable the auto-saving of media
Whenever someone sends us a media file (like a photo or a video), it is automatically downloaded by WhatsApp. Needless to say, this can take up a lot of space on your device. To learn how to reduce WhatsApp Storage, you can just disable this option. Simply go to WhatsApp Settings > Chats and toggle off the “Save Incoming Media” feature. Now, whenever you wish to save a photo or a video, you have to first tap on the download icon.
Part 3: Move WhatsApp Data to SD Card (for Android Devices)
If you are a regular WhatsApp user, then you might already know that the app saves all the downloaded content on the phone’s internal storage. Though, if you have an Android device, then you can move the WhatsApp data to the connected SD card and free up space on the internal storage.
Method 1: Move data from WhatsApp Storage Location to SD Card
The easiest way to learn how to reduce WhatsApp storage is by manually moving the data to the SD card. For this, you need to use a more advanced file manager app, like the ES File Explorer.
At first, just launch the ES File Explorer and browse to the WhatsApp storage location (Internal Storage > WhatsApp). Now, select the WhatsApp data from here and copy/cut it.
After that, you can go to the SD card storage on File Explorer and paste the WhatsApp data here. You would have to do this manually to move data from the WhatsApp storage location to the SD card.
Method 2: Permanently make SD card as its default storage
There are also dedicated apps that you can use to change the default WhatsApp storage location to the SD card. For instance, one of these apps that you can use to free up space on WhatsApp is XternalSD.
Once the app is downloaded, launch it, and tap on the “Path to Internal SD Card” feature. Here, you can change it to the SD Card storage as the desired path.
Later, go to the Settings of the XternalSD app, tap on the “Enable for Apps” feature and make sure “WhatsApp” is selected. This will automatically make your SD card the default location to save your WhatsApp data.
I’m sure that after reading this guide, you can easily learn how to reduce WhatsApp storage on iPhone or Android. If WhatsApp is taking too much space on your device, then you can just back up its data to your computer. For this, you can take the assistance of MobileTrans – WhatsApp Transfer and later get rid of WhatsApp data from your device. Apart from that, you can also follow the shared instructions to change the default WhatsApp storage location to an SD card on your Android.