How to Clear Photos and Videos Saved by Chat Apps

A busy group chat can deliver dozens of pictures, memes and short videos in a single day. Many chat apps save those files to your phone as they arrive, and some also add them to your photo library. You never chose to keep most of them, yet they sit next to the pictures you actually took and take up the same space.

The result is a library full of forwarded images, blurry screenshots of screenshots and the same clip received three times from three different people. None of it is precious, but all of it counts towards your storage total.

Open your phone’s storage screen in Settings and look at the list of apps sorted by size. Chat apps often sit near the top. Many phones let you tap an app to see how much of its size is documents and data rather than the app itself, and that figure is mostly saved media.

Inside most chat apps there is also a storage or data section in the app’s own settings. It usually lists conversations by size, so you can see which chat is the worst offender and review its media without touching the others.

Look in each chat app’s settings for an option about saving received photos and videos to your device. Switching it off for large group chats stops new clutter at the source, while you can still save the odd picture you care about by hand.

Some apps also download media automatically only on Wi-Fi or only on mobile data, and let you choose which types of file are included. Tightening these settings is a one-off job that saves a lot of space over a year.

Start with videos, then forwarded images, then screenshots. Our photo cleaner can help with the photos: choose a batch from your library and it groups near-identical pictures, scores blurry ones and lists screenshots, so you can see at a glance which forwards are duplicates. The analysis happens inside your browser and nothing is uploaded.

Because a website cannot delete from your phone library, you finish the job in your own photos app using the checklist. Remember that deleted items usually wait in a recently-deleted area, so empty it once you are happy.

Before you clear a chat’s media, check whether it holds anything you would miss, such as photos from a family event that only exist in that conversation. Save those to your photo library or back them up somewhere else first, then clear the rest without worrying.