WhatsApp tips and tricks on Android, iPhone: Hide media from gallery, send long voice notes and more
WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging app, has a ton of features that you might not be using. Here's how you can use them to make your life a lot simpler.
WhatsApp has been there for more than a decade now and it has convinced over two billion people to use the app. It is currently one of the most used cross-platform messaging applications across the globe. The company has been able to achieve such popularity only by introducing new features almost every month. This makes people stay with WhatsApp rather than downloading other feature-loaded apps. As the updates arrive, people do not usually notice some small changes that can actually come in handy. So, here are a few tips and tricks that can make your WhatsApp chatting experience much better.
Share high-quality pictures
WhatsApp, as a platform, is used a lot for sharing pictures. In order to save some storage, the app automatically compresses images when we share them. While most of the times they look great, there are times when you need to share the best quality images with friends or family. In situations like these, you can use a simple trick to send high-quality images on WhatsApp. When attaching the images, instead of clicking on the Gallery option, tap on the Documents option. Here, tap on "Browse other docs" and then you can see all the latest pictures at one place. Basically, you will be sending these pictures as documents forcing WhatsApp to use the full size instead of compressing it.
Delete all media at once from select groups or chats
We all have at least one group where the group members keep sending media files. If you have auto-download turned on, this will quickly eat up your smartphone's storage. Deleting these media files one by one can also feel like a burden. Thankfully, there is a simple WhatsApp trick that can come for your rescue.
WhatsApp basically allows users to delete media or text messages from a particular chat all at once. In order to do this, head over to WhatsApp Settings > Data and storage usage > Storage usage. Once it loads all the chats, you can also see which one is taking the most storage on your phone. Now tap on a chat to see whether photos or videos are eating up space. Now, tap on Free up storage option and select the type of media you wish to delete.
Record long-duration voice notes
Recording long-duration voice notes on WhatsApp can be a bit cumbersome due to the fact that the user needs to press and hold the mic button as long as they are speaking. If you have not noticed yet, the company recently added an option to lock the voice note recording button. This basically means that you can make WhatsApp record the voice note without needing to keep the mic option pressed. One can do this is by first taping and holding the voice note option and then swiping it upwards.
Hide WhatsApp photos, videos from gallery
We often handover our phones to friends or family members to check out some pictures or videos in the gallery. However, in the process of swiping here and there, they might encounter something you didn't want them to see. This usually happens when a ton of unwanted media files from WhatsApp land on your gallery. This also clutters your gallery with all the "Good morning" messages and other media files.
In order to fix this, users can always hide WhatsApp media from the gallery app. To do this, head over to WhatsApp and open the chat in which you wish to turn off the feature. Tap on the chat/group name > Media Visibility > No. Once done, the media files received on the particular chat or group will be hidden from your phone's gallery.
Export chats as email
When switching from Android to iOS or vice versa, we often lose our WhatsApp chats. But there are times when you want at least on important chat. To your rescue, comes the export as an email feature. Head over to WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat history > Export chat. Select the chat and then you can email the chat log with or without media files.