WhatsApp is not only a great messenger but also a great way to share photos and videos between friends, co-workers, and family. Of course, watching the submitted photos and videos using the application itself is not very interesting, so we tend to browse the uploaded image files using the gallery.
But sometimes things may not be so simple and photos and videos downloaded through WhatsApp may not be displayed in the phone’s gallery app. While this can be a problem for both Android and iOS phones, it can be caused by a variety of reasons, as the two operating systems behave differently with WhatsApp image files.
In this article, we intend to investigate the reasons for this issue and provide solutions to solve the problem of not displaying WhatsApp photos in the gallery. If you are facing this problem and you are trying to find a solution to it, do not miss the following article.
1. Restart the phone
As a first step, it might be a good idea to try the old method of restarting your phone, which is both less troublesome and maybe the right solution to your problem. You can restart both by turning the phone on and off again and with the special restart button.
2. Enable Media Visibility settings on Android
In the Android operating system, after downloading any video or video file in WhatsApp, these files will be automatically available in the phone gallery application, no matter what the model of your Android phone is.
However, WhatsApp has introduced a new feature called Media visibility to protect users’ privacy, which hides photos and videos downloaded through the app in the gallery. Therefore, one of the reasons for the problem of not showing WhatsApp photos in the gallery is due to this feature.
There are two ways to change the Media visibility settings, each of which is discussed below.
- The first way: Enable Media visibility for all audiences
Step 1: Open WhatsApp and enter the settings via the three dots icon at the top right of the application.
Step 2: By entering the Chats section, activate the Media visibility option by changing its switch-mode until the switch turns green. This will hide all the image files downloaded via WhatsApp in your gallery app and you can view them.
- The second way: Enable Media visibility for one or more specific contacts
If you only have trouble viewing image files submitted by some of your contacts in the gallery, Media visibility may have been disabled for them only. You can enable this feature for that contact or contacts by following the steps below.
Step 1: Open the chat of your desired contact and tap on his name (or group name).
Step 2: Tap Media visibility and select Yes in the confirmation answer.
If you enable the Media visibility feature, only the image files that will be sent to you from now on will be visible in the gallery. But what if you also want to see old photos and videos? In this case, you must use a file explorer application. You can do this in a variety of ways, which we will cover in the next tutorials.
4. Clear WhatsApp cache on Android
Step 1: Open the phone’s Settings menu and enter the Apps or Apps & notifications section.
Step 2: Find WhatsApp and select it through the All apps sub-category.
Step 3: From the profile page that opens, select the Storage option and then Clear cache and then restart the phone.
Note that clearing WhatsApp cache does not clear chats and their media, but the Clear Storage or Clear Data option does.
5. Enable the Save to Camera Roll feature on the iPhone
Unlike Android, WhatsApp photos on iPhone are not automatically displayed in Photos or any other gallery app after download, and to display them in your phone’s default gallery app, you either have to save each photo manually or the Save to feature. Activate Camera Roll. It is only if you do one of these two things that you can view the downloaded photos in WhatsApp through the gallery.
To enable this feature, open WhatsApp and enter the settings. Tap the Chats option in the page that opens to look for Save to Camera Roll and activate the switch.
6. Enable Photos Access on iPhone
WhatsApp needs access to be able to download photos and videos submitted by WhatsApp. So if you are looking for a solution to the problem of not displaying WhatsApp photos in the gallery, you must make sure that this access is enabled.
To do this, go to the phone settings and scroll down to find WhatsApp and enter its settings. Then tap Photos and select Read and Write.
7. Delete extra photos
If you send a lot of photos and videos on WhatsApp, then the space required to save your photos and videos may be out of stock, and the photos will not be displayed in the gallery. The solution to this problem is obvious: you have to delete your extra photos using a file explorer app or directly and through WhatsApp itself.
8. Check Google Photos
If you use Google Photos as the default application on your phone and use the features of Delete local copy or Free up device storage, this will probably cause you the problem of not displaying WhatsApp photos in the gallery. If you use the above items, the photos will be deleted from the device but will still be available through the Google Photos service.
9. WhatsApp update
There is always the possibility that bugs in applications will cause you various problems. The same is true for WhatsApp, and if you do not use the updated version of this application, go to the App Market of your operating system and update WhatsApp to the latest version.
10. Change the hidden mode of the Privae folder
Sometimes a user may have Media Visibility enabled, but still not have access to WhatsApp images and videos. In such cases, the files may be located in the Private folder, which can not be viewed normally. To solve this problem, you must first enter the WhatsApp folder through a file management application and then refer to the Media section. Now select WhatsApp Images and finally open the Private folder. Then copy all the items in the said folder and paste them into Whatsapp images. Do the same for the videos.
11. Delete .Nomedia file
Another reason why WhatsApp files are not displayed correctly in the gallery is the existence of a file called .nomedia in the folder of this application. Any folder that contains this file will hide its contents from programs such as Gallery. To fix the problem, log in to the device file management app. Enable hidden files by going to the settings menu through the three-point menu (depending on the application type), and then go to the WhatsApp folder. First, go to the Media section and enter WhatsApp videos. If you see a file named .nomedia, delete it. Do the same for the WhatsApp images and Private folders.
Last resort: Reinstall WhatsApp
If you tried the above methods and none of them were a solution to the problem of not showing WhatsApp photos in your phone gallery, remove WhatsApp as a last resort and then reinstall. After reinstalling, you will probably be able to view your downloaded photos and image files in your gallery.
But before doing this, be sure to back up your chats on Google Drive (Android) or iCloud (iPhone) through the backup feature in the WhatsApp application. Deleting WhatsApp deletes all chats, settings, files and other data in your account.
Manually save WhatsApp images and videos
Users can manually extract WhatsApp files and save them to the desired destination. You will need the Google Photos app to do this; Of course, you can also use other file management programs. Follow the steps below to save manually.
1. First open a chat containing the desired image or video. Then select the file and tap Share by tapping the three-dot menu in the corner of the screen.
2. From the options displayed, select your file manager or Google Photos.
3. If you selected Google Photos, you will have to re-select the uploaded images and save them offline on the device. Images will be placed in the Downloads folder.
Users can also save WhatsApp files offline via email. All you have to do is select the email option in the sharing menu and then enter the files as attachments to your email address.
Prevent saving WhatsApp files
To stop saving WhatsApp files, after opening the application, enter the Settings section and refer to the Chats section. Now turn off the Save to Camera Roll option. Note that all previously saved items will remain in their previous location, and changes made to future files will take effect.
Users can also restrict file storage to specific chats or groups. To do this, click on the name of the contact or group and then open the Contact Info or Group Info section. On this page you can change the settings related to Save to Camera Roll. To stop saving files, set this to Never. By default, all groups and chats will follow the general settings mentioned above.
Frequently asked questions by users about not displaying WhatsApp photos in the gallery
How can you solve the problem of not showing WhatsApp photos in the gallery?
WhatsApp has many parts that can be solved by enabling or disabling them. You can view the media sent in WhatsApp in your mobile gallery with methods such as resetting the mobile, clearing the WhatsApp cache, enabling the ability to view media for specific people or all audiences, etc.
How to save photos in iPhone gallery?
The first and most important thing is to enable WhatsApp access to the default gallery app. After that, you must either save the uploaded images and videos manually or enable the Save to Camera Roll option.
What is the best way to avoid showing WhatsApp photos in the gallery?
The best and easiest way to view images or videos in WhatsApp is to manually save them in the mobile gallery. This will not download additional items and you will be sure to do and save your own content.
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Source: Guidingtech
