14 DAY TRIAL // WhatsApp has become one of the most popular instant messaging apps on mobile devices, and needless to say, the last few months have obviously caused a spike in global usage for obvious reasons.
At the same time, many people use WhatsApp not only for text messaging but also for sharing photos and videos. All the content that is shared on WhatsApp ends up eating up valuable space on the device, while also being included in backups that the app itself can create and store in the cloud.
On devices with a limited amount of storage, managing files that are stored by WhatsApp has become a critical thing, especially because the more you use the app, the more space it needs on the local drive.
For example, on my iPhone WhatsApp uses over 20GB of storage, and needless to say, most of it comes down to photos and videos that me and my contacts shared since I installed the app.
The Facebook-owned company knows how important managing files actually is for its users, so the iPhone and Android client has recently been updated with new capabilities in this regard. You could already clear WhatsApp data on both mobile platforms, but the app now includes additional information in this regard, all to offer a better picture of how files use your available storage space.
So right now, WhatsApp comes with a new interface for managing your files under Settings > Storage and Data. You can now see how much storage each conversation with your contact actually requires on your device and then view more information about each chat.
For example, expanding the contact logs let you see the following data:
- Total amount of used storage per contact
- Number of messages
- Number of texts
- Number of shared contacts
- How many times you shared the location
- Number of shared photos and used storage
- Number of shared GIFs and used storage
- Number of shared videos and used storage
- Number of shared voice messages and used storage
- Number of shared documents and used storage
- Number of shared stickers and used storage
An additional manage button that’s in the lower part of the screen lets you delete any of these files right from WhatsApp, thus making the cleaning process overall a lot more straightforward.
While this comes in really handy, what would be more useful is a more convenient approach to manage data per each contact. For example, WhatsApp should add a shortcut to this information right in the conversation screen, and this way you could see the amount of data that is used by each chat without having to go to settings.
At the end of the day, however, users who are low on storage will find the new UI pretty handy, especially when they are trying to delete content they no longer need. There are plenty of low-storage iPhones out there, some of them coming with just 16GB, and given the operating system and the apps themselves also eating up some storage, it’s pretty clear that such features can help make more room on the device.
The new feature is already available today on Android and iPhone, though WhatsApp has released it silently without any prior announcement. It’s a welcome improvement nonetheless, and the Facebook-owned company is projected to roll out even more new features in the coming months, including support for disappearing messages. Also referred to as self-destructing messages, they will be available for standard chats and group conversations, with the data to be removed automatically after 7 days without any kind of user input.