This new WhatsApp feature will let you free up more storage space on your phone

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging platforms, with around two billion users across the world.

One downfall of the app is that it can end up taking up a big chunk of your storage on your mobile phone, as many people use it to send photos, videos, files, gifs and more.

Now, WhatsApp has redesigned its storage management to allow users to easily clear out unnecessary files that could be taking up precious space.

Manage storage

The Facebook-owned company said it has “redesigned the storage management tool” on WhatsApp, which will make it better for users to “easily identify, review and bulk delete content that may be filling their phone.”

The current system allows users to simply to sort through all available chats by the amount of space they take up - listing the number of messages, photos, gifs and videos in each chat, and allowing the users to delete each category with a few taps.

This is useful, but doesn’t allow people to browse through the content that they’re removing, meaning they could accidentally end up deleting photos and videos they want to keep.

How to use the new system

WhatsApp tweeted a statement and a video on 3 November, saying, “We’ve made it easy to review, bulk delete items and free up space.”

We’ve made it easy to review, bulk delete items and free up space. This new storage management tool can be found in Settings > Storage and Data > Manage Storage. pic.twitter.com/eIMFZ1Oyzr

— WhatsApp Inc. (@WhatsApp) November 3, 2020

This new system will allow users to see thumbnails of content before it is deleted, and will group items into categories such as “forwarded many times” and “larger than 5 MB” which will make it easier to sort through large files that are taking up the most space, or duplicated files.

You can access this information by going to Settings > Storage and Data > Manage Storage.

The update is set to roll out worldwide to users this week, so don’t panic if you don’t have the option yet in your app. Just make sure your app is up to date, and you’ll soon see the change.

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