WhatsApp has announced that a new storage management tool is rolling out to its private messaging mobile app. If you have auto media download enabled for WhatsApp (for whatever reason), you should be aware that all the photos and videos are stored permanently on your device’s storage. This new feature aims to make cleanups easier by helping users to identify, select and delete files in bulk.
The tool can be accessed within the app by navigating to the Manage Storage menu from the drop down tab. Alternatively, users can immediately access the function by tapping on the in-app notification banner above the chat list when WhatsApp detects that the device’s storage is running low.
Once in the Manage Storage menu, the new tool provides users with a device storage indicator bar that displays the device’s overall storage capacity and the amount of space taken by WhatsApp media files. Below the indicator is a list of stored media and files from the user’s chat history sorted in different categories.
These categories include “Forwarded many times”, “Files larger than 5MB”, and so on. Tapping on one of these will then reveal all of the files contained within it, along with thumbnail previews of each item. From there, the user can select different items that they wish to delete from the pile, or simply tap the “Delete all” tab to purge all of the contents in that category.
According to Engadget, the newly announced storage management tool is currently being rolled out to the WhatsApp mobile application across the globe on both Android and iOS platforms. However, it appears that the new update has yet to arrive in our region, based on our recent checks. Hopefully, we’ll be expecting this new feature to pop-up soon enough in the coming days or weeks.
