In case you hadn’t noticed it, WhatsApp is fond of rolling out new features first to iOS, and later on to Android and Windows phones. One feature that has been available for iPhone users for a long time now is granular storage control over chats.
What it means to have granular storage control is, basically, to have very detailed control over how you manage storage for chats on WhatsApp. Up to now, those using the stable version of the Facebook-owned chat app can either delete an entire conversation, including the photos and videos attached to it or delete multiple messages by selecting the ones you want to delete, which will also include media files attached to it.
Now, in the newly released beta version of WhatsApp, which has version number 2.17.340, the company has finally included a proper way to manage storage on the app. The new update can be found in Settings>Data and storage usage>Storage usage, where the app will populate conversations and their data will be tallied alongside each thread beginning with the largest to the smallest, just as shown in the image below.
When you tap on any chat from the list, you will see more details of every message type and below it is a Manage messages option which when selected, you can be able to delete any type or all messages that you’ve sent or received. If you are in groups that members are very active, this new feature should really help when it comes to dealing with the numerous photo and video files they share – files that can consume huge amounts of storage space after a few days.
Unlike before, where deleting messages meant you lost everything, including texts and documents that might have been of great importance, the new update means users of WhatsApp can now delete the storage-consuming media files and keep the others.
Since this feature is only limited to the beta version of WhatsApp, you may get it by joining the beta program via the Google Play Store or simply get the APK version and install it manually. As for the stable channel, we can’t tell when the company plans to roll it out, but it shouldn’t be long now that the beta version has already received it.
