Stranger WhatsApp photos on your cell phone? Turn off downloading

November 5th, 2023, 4:16 p.m. |
Reading time: 2 minutes

Have you ever wondered why there are photos and videos on your smartphone that you have never seen before or that you don’t know where they even come from? The messenger WhatsApp could be to blame for the strange photos. TECHBOOK tells you how to solve the problem.

This is how someone else’s photos come from WhatsApp to the smartphone

WhatsApp’s auto-save feature is actually quite handy if you don’t want to constantly manually download photos or videos that you’ve received. However, the feature, which is usually activated by default, can be frightening to anyone who doesn’t know it when strangers’ photos suddenly fill the gallery.

Because when you download the pictures and videos from your smartphone to a computer, you suddenly notice a lot of media content that you didn’t create yourself. The media comes from all kinds of contacts with whom you write. When a contact posts an image or video in a chat, it goes straight to the gallery – from both individual and group chats.

Simply switch off the function

It’s easy to turn off the auto-save feature on both an Android and iOS device. First the procedure for Android, then for an iPhone.

Android:

1. Open WhatsApp and tap the three-line menu at the top right.
2. Then go to “Settings”.
3. After that, you have to tap on “Chats”.
4. Finally, under “Chat Settings” you will find the “Media Visibility” option.
5. Disable the slider if you don’t want photos and videos from other contacts to be saved automatically.

iOS:

1. Open WhatsApp and tap “Settings” at the bottom right.
2. Then tap on “Chats”.
3. To stop the auto save feature, turn off the Save to Record slider.

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The procedure saves storage space on the respective device. Photos and videos of others that you would like to keep permanently can also be saved specifically from the respective chats.

With material from dpa