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How do I stop WhatsApp photos saving to my gallery?

By the AndroidAnswers Editorial Team · Updated

About 4 minutes · Storage & cleanup

Steps written for Android 16 and 17, including Samsung One UI 8 and 9, Google Pixel, and Motorola. Menu names can vary a little by model and carrier.

Illustration of a phone showing a framed photo of hills and a sun, with a chat bubble on one side and a folder on the other

Open WhatsApp, tap the three dots at the top right, then Settings, then Chats, and turn off Media visibility. New photos and videos people send you will stop appearing in your phone's gallery. Photos already there stay until you delete them. You can also turn this off for just one busy chat or group.

Steps to check

Show steps for:

  1. Turn off Media visibility for all chats

    WhatsApp shows the photos and videos you receive in your phone's gallery unless you tell it not to. To stop this, open WhatsApp and tap More options (the three dots at the top right). Tap Settings, then Chats, and turn off Media visibility. From now on, new photos and videos stay inside WhatsApp and will not appear in your gallery. You can still see them in the chat they came from.

  2. Or turn it off for just one chat or group

    If one busy family group is the main problem, you can change only that chat. Open the chat, tap the contact or group name at the top, then tap Media visibility. Choose No, then tap OK. Your other chats keep working as before. If you already set a choice for a chat this way, the main switch in step 1 does not change it.

  3. Stop WhatsApp downloading everything automatically

    WhatsApp can also download photos, videos, and voice messages the moment they arrive, which uses storage and mobile data. To limit this, tap More options, then Settings, then Storage and data. Under Media auto-download, tap When using mobile data, When connected on Wi-Fi, and When roaming in turn, and untick the types of media you do not want downloaded automatically, then tap OK. You can still download any photo or video yourself by tapping it, then tapping the Download arrow.

  4. Clear out WhatsApp photos you already have

    Turning off Media visibility does not remove photos that are already in your gallery. To review them inside WhatsApp, tap More options, then Settings, then Storage and data, then Manage storage. You can sort files by size and delete the ones you do not need. Take care: once deleted, you may not be able to download the item again from the chat. Deleting only removes your copy. Other people in the chat still have theirs.

  5. Check Google Photos backup for the WhatsApp folder

    If you use Google Photos, it may be backing up your WhatsApp photos folder as well. To stop that, open Google Photos, tap your profile picture at the top right, then Photos settings, then Backup, then Back up device folders. Turn off the WhatsApp folder. Photos that were already backed up stay in Google Photos until you delete them there.

    • Samsung Photos usually show in the Gallery app, which groups pictures into albums, so WhatsApp photos often appear in their own album
    • Pixel Google Photos is the gallery app, so the Backup setting above covers both

Normal vs. not

Usually normal

Photos from before you changed the setting still showing in your gallery. The setting only affects new photos and videos.

Worth a closer look

New WhatsApp photos still showing up after you turned Media visibility off. Check whether that chat has its own Media visibility set to Yes (step 2), and that the photo was not saved by hand.

What people are saying

Common questions

Will turning off Media visibility delete my photos?
No. It only stops new photos and videos from appearing in your gallery. Everything stays in your WhatsApp chats, and photos already in your gallery stay where they are.
Where are WhatsApp photos stored on my phone?
WhatsApp saves them in its own media folder on the phone. You can browse it with your phone's files app, Files by Google or Samsung My Files.
Will this free up space on my phone?
Turning off Media visibility hides new photos from the gallery but they are still stored by WhatsApp. To save space, also limit Media auto-download (step 3) and delete large files in Manage storage (step 4).

Sources we checked

Menu names can differ by phone brand and Android version. See our editorial policy for how we check steps.