How to stop auto download of media in Whatsapp

It's fun to install and chat with your friends using apps like Whatsapp, We Chat etc on your mobile device. You might share images, audio, video files and also watch these video files on your mobile data enabled device. But, what most of them don't realize is the data that is consumed in downloading these files while seeing these image, or watching videos.

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Images may not consume much space and may not be a culprit when is comes to consumption of data, but videos will definitely consume lot of data. That too if you are using your mobile data - 2G, 3G, 4G etc, you are sure to get a bill which might look like lottery ticket unless you have an unlimited data usage plan. The best is to connect to WiFi whenever possible.

By default in Whatsapp when you are connected to mobile data network, Audio and Video file downloads are disabled and Images will be enabled. So, there won't be any auto download of audio and video files while using mobile data network. When you are in roaming, all three are disabled and when on WiFi, all three are enabled. These are the default settings in Whatsapp app.

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If you want to have better control of these settings and want to disable even the images (which I would recommend) when on mobile data network to avoid huge bills, then follow the following steps:

• Install and open whatsapp app on your mobile device.


• Go to 'Settings', followed by 'Chat Settings'.


• Tap on 'Media auto-download'.


• Tap on 'When using mobile data'.


• Un-check all including images or change the settings the way you want to.

Similarly, you can do the same by changing the settings for roaming and WiFi. It's always recommended to disable auto download when on mobile data network and while on roaming. Note that voice messages in Whatsapp are always automatically downloaded for the best communication experience. So, it's better to manually disable mobile data network on phone when you don't need it.

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