WhatsApp is the app that we use every day to chat with friends, colleagues and relatives and, among numerous messages and multimedia contents, it quickly becomes the app that takes up the most space in the phone's memory, even on those more modern and capacious from 64 or 128 GB. With such high capacities, the time required for WhatsApp to become a "brick" could be very long, but we must also consider devices with 32 GB of memory, still very popular and sold (especially among the low-cost Chinese models).To prevent WhatsApp from becoming so heavy as to slow down the whole phone, in this guide we will show you how to reduce the space occupied by WhatsApp using some tools integrated within the messaging app and almost all modern phones, also adding some very effective cleaning apps.
READ ALSO: Free up space in Whatsapp and delete photos and videos from the archive
Reduce the space of WhatsApp
The same WhatsApp app allows you to free up space in the internal memory without having to intervene between the phone options or install third-party apps. On Android smartphones, simply open the app, press on the top right on the three dots, then on Settings and then on Data usage and storage -> Storage use.
In the screen that will open we will see all the chats and groups active on our account, with the top ones heavier in terms of resources. We press on each of them, scroll down the page and finally press on Free up space is Delete items, so as to delete the multimedia elements that take up the most space (photos, GIFs, videos etc.).
On iPhone the procedure is very similar: we open the WhatsApp app, we press the menu on the bottom right Settings, let's get on the path Use of data and archive -> Use of archive, press on chats or groups with the most resources occupied, press on Manage below and we delete the heavier multimedia content.
By applying these changes we will have to be able to recover a lot of space in the internal memory, especially if we frequent large groups or exchange many multimedia files every hour (in fact the real ones responsible for the heaviness of WhatsApp on not particularly fast phones and snappy).
Obviously if we have important photos shared on WhatsApp, it is better to save them on the cloud, also using automatic synchronization as seen in the guide Google Photos app with unlimited backup from Android, iPhone and PC.
Erase data on device
In addition to the procedure present within the app, we can also use the cache and space cleaning tools integrated on many Android operating systems, as in the case of Xiaomi smartphones. Before continuing then let's check if our smartphone has an app or a system option called Cleaning, Cleaner or Cleaner and, if so, let's use it to be able to immediately free up space from the phone (in many cases we will immediately see all the unnecessary WhatsApp files or the larger multimedia files).
From the cleaning menu we press the button Clean up to start standard cleaning; to delete the useless contents of WhatsApp we start the mode Deep cleaning when required, so you can view an advanced screen from which to delete photos and video duplicates, the apps you rarely use and the non-important data of the applications (where WhatsApp often comes first).
Reduce the space occupied with cleaning app
If our smartphone does not have an integrated cleaning tool, we can rely on some third-party apps to be installed on the phone. Currently the best cleaning app for Android device is definitely SD Maid, available for free.
The app allows you to obtain many cleaning functions for cache, junk files and files continuously generated by apps such as WhatsApp and others related to social networks and messaging. In most cases, simply press on Scan, wait a few minutes and then press on Run now to start cleaning. The app also offers many additional settings and increases its effectiveness when used on smartphones with i root permissions unlocked.
To reduce the space occupied by WhatsApp with external apps on the iPhone, we can install the Clean Doctor app.
With this app we will be able to delete heavier photos and videos, clean unnecessary content and improve the use of the internal memory by the phone (with the function Disk Storage Usage). The app also shows other useful features such as the system to hide private photos and a screen with tricks to improve battery life.
Other cleaning apps for the phone can be found in our guides App to clean Android from unnecessary files that take up space is App to erase data on iPhone and clean memory.
Conclusions
If WhatsApp quickly fills the internal memory of our device, we can intervene promptly before it is too late (i.e. error messages for full memory) using both the integrated tools and some convenient cleaning apps, available for free for any device.
Does our Android smartphone or tablet slow down and is not as fast as it used to be? In addition to the tricks seen above, we recommend you read our guides How to clear the Android cache and recover memory and accelerator is Android cleaner that works: Droid Optimizer, so as to have a good chance of returning the device as fast and snappy as just bought.
For photos saved in the memory of our Android phone we can also proceed with automatic deletion, as seen in the article Automatic deletion of photos and images on Android smartphones.