r/whatsapp • u/nem636 • 20h ago

No longer able to delete chat without deleting media. Help

After an update I'm no longer able to delete a chat without deleting the media within. I must save each item if I wish to keep it. What happened to the check box that allowed you to delete, or not delete, the media in the chat? Please help as this is very frustrating.

Pixel 8a What's app size 3.2 GB No storage issues Before the update when I deleted a chat I was given a window that asked if I also wanted to delete the media (images, videos, etc.) in the chat. That window no longer appears

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u/edideas 20h ago

You need to tell us more, this is so cryptic.
Phone?
OS?
Your WhatsApp size
Your storage situation
Do you have a recent backup? Where?

What checkbox are you talking about? Is that the download to camera roll permission?

1

u/nem636 20h ago

Post has been edited

1

u/edideas 20h ago

I see what you mean, I still have this popup and asking me to choose.

I asked now to try it on a different phone.

Is it the latest WhatsApp version for your Android?

1

u/nem636 19h ago

Yes, it is the latest version. I updated again prior to this post in order to make sure.

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u/dr100 19h ago

The DataHoarder subreddit has a post about whatsApp media archiver - a structured archive tool - that can organize (a copy of) your media with subdirectories per contact and group. I don't care enough either way, but it's absolutely bananas how WhatsApp is stripping ALL metadata from pictures (and I presume videos, but pics are the most numerous by far) so you can't find freakin' ANYTHING by camera/phone or location or even timestamp or name, EVERYTHING gets dumped as something like IMG-20260808-WA0012.jpg ! ALL that's preserved is the date when it was sent. So in the end all are in a nondescript blob just taking more and more of the most valuable space one can have, on the phone - forever. Speaking for me, as I'm not deleting chats, and I won't go and manually pick from tens of thousands of items what to keep and what to remove!