The automatic download of images and videos received on WhatsApp is the main cause of the end of data on the smartphone: here’s how to solve the problem
Those who use WhatsApp know that there is a default feature that risks consuming a lot of battery, a lot of data of the phone subscription and that can also cause problems with the internal memory of the smartphone. We are talking about the automatic download of files that our friends send us. Luckily we can disable this feature.
By default WhatsApp automatically downloads all incoming multimedia files to our phone. Surely this is a convenient solution, but not always recommended. Especially outside the home when we use the data connection instead of Wi-Fi. For people who use groups a lot, and especially for those who have friends who constantly send videos and photos, this feature can be really problematic. And it can also put a strain on our phone’s battery performance. Luckily, however, it only takes a few steps to change this setting on WhatsApp.
Block Auto-Download on Android
If we have an Android smartphone and want to block the automatic download on WhatsApp, first we need to launch the app. At this point we click on the menu icon on the main page (the one where all the chats are displayed). The menu is recognizable by the three vertical dots. Then we select Settings, then Chat and then Automatic Download. We can disable the option in any case or in three different solutions. The first one allows you to disable the download when we use the data connection, the second one provides the block during Wi-Fi connection and the third one sets the block in case of roaming. The advice is to select all three of these options. In this way we will decide manually what to download on our phone.
Automatic download blocker on iPhone
If instead we have an iPhone we always go in the Settings menu, inside WhatsApp. Here we select Data Usage and Archive. In the menu that appears we will see the option Automatic Download. We can decide to block incoming files based on their characteristics. For example, we can accept photos but never videos or documents. The advice is to set the option Never in all available cases. And that’s it.