WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps worldwide, with over 2 billion active users. It allows you to easily communicate with friends, family, coworkers, and more through text, audio, video, and document sharing.
Over time, your WhatsApp chats, media, and other data can take up a significant amount of storage space on your iPhone. You may want to delete WhatsApp content that you no longer need in order to free up storage space. Fortunately, WhatsApp makes it easy to delete chats, media, and other app data on iPhone.
In this guide, we will provide an overview of how to delete WhatsApp content and free up space on your iPhone.
Deleting Individual Chats
The easiest way to delete WhatsApp content is to delete specific chats that you no longer need. Here are the steps to delete individual chats:
- Open the WhatsApp app on your iPhone.
- Tap on the ‘Chats’ tab at the bottom to see your chat list.
- Swipe left on the chat you want to delete.
- Tap on ‘Delete’ to confirm deleting the chat.
This will immediately delete the entire chat history with that contact. Keep in mind this will delete the chat history from your iPhone, but not the contact’s phone.
You can also delete chats by tapping and holding on a chat, then tapping ‘Delete Chat’ and confirming the deletion. The swipe method is usually faster if you want to quickly delete multiple chats.
Deleting Media
WhatsApp media, like photos, videos, and audio files, can take up a lot of storage space on your iPhone. To free up space, you may want to mass delete media. Here’s how:
- Open the WhatsApp chat containing the media you want to delete.
- Tap and hold on the media file you want to delete.
- Tap ‘Delete’ to confirm deleting just that one file.
- To mass delete all media in the chat, tap the contact’s name at the top of the chat screen.
- Tap ‘Media, Links and Docs’ to see all media files.
- Tap ‘Select’ at the top right.
- Tap on each media file you want to delete so a checkmark appears.
- Tap ‘Delete’ at the bottom and confirm to delete the selected media.
This will allow you to delete multiple or all media files in a chat in just a few taps. The media will be deleted from your iPhone, but remain on the contact’s phone if it was sent from them originally.
Deleting Large Videos
WhatsApp automatically compresses videos before sending them in chats. But over time, these videos can still take up a lot of storage space. To quickly delete large videos:
- Open WhatsApp Settings > Data and Storage Usage.
- Tap on ‘Storage Usage’ to see a list of chats ranked by storage space used.
- Tap on the chat taking up the most space.
- Tap and hold on the large video file.
- Tap ‘Delete’ to delete only that video.
You can go through chats and delete additional large videos one by one using this method to significantly reduce WhatsApp storage usage.
Clearing All Chats
If you want to delete all your WhatsApp chats and messages on iPhone at once, you can use the ‘Clear All Chats’ option:
- Open WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Clear All Chats.
- Tap ‘Clear All Chats’ again to confirm.
This will immediately delete all chat histories, messages, photos, videos and other media from WhatsApp. Your contacts will remain, but all conversations will be erased.
Note that this action is irreversible, so be certain before clearing all WhatsApp chats. Any unbacked up chats will be permanently deleted.
Deleting WhatsApp Media Storage
In addition to chats, WhatsApp stores all sent and received media on your iPhone separately from your camera roll. To clear up space by removing cached WhatsApp media:
- Go to iPhone Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
- Tap on ‘WhatsApp’ to see the storage usage breakdown.
- Tap on ‘Edit’ at the top right.
- Select all media you want to remove, or ‘Select All’ to delete all WhatsApp media.
- Tap ‘Delete’ and then ‘Delete Selected’ to confirm.
This will delete the cached media files without touching your actual chats or camera roll photos. Your media will still appear in chats, but will need to re-download if you try to view it.
Backing Up WhatsApp Before Deleting
Before doing any mass deleting, it’s smart to back up your WhatsApp chats. This provides a safety net in case you delete something important and need to restore it.
WhatsApp has a built-in iCloud chat backup option that works automatically in the background when your iPhone is connected to power, Wi-Fi, and has an active internet connection.
You can also manually back up WhatsApp by going to Settings > Chats > Chat Backup > Back Up Now. This will immediately do a fresh iCloud backup of your WhatsApp data.
Additionally, you can use iTunes or Finder on a computer to do local WhatsApp backups via wired connection. Just connect your iPhone, select it, go to Backups and tap ‘Back Up Now’.
Restoring Deleted WhatsApp Content
If you delete any WhatsApp content by accident, you may be able to restore it from a recent backup:
- Uninstall WhatsApp completely and reinstall it from the App Store.
- When prompted during setup, tap ‘Restore’ to restore chats and data from your latest iCloud backup.
- WhatsApp will re-download chats, media, settings based on the iCloud backup file.
This restoration process applies to any individual or mass deletion as long as you have a recent backup. Keep backups regularly updated for peace of mind when deleting WhatsApp content.
Alternative Ways to Free up iPhone Storage
In addition to cleaning up WhatsApp, here are some other ways to free up storage space on your iPhone:
- Offload unused apps
- Delete old text messages
- Remove unused downloads from Safari
- Delete unwanted photos and videos from Camera Roll
- Turn on iCloud Photos to store photos/videos in the cloud
- Stream music and videos instead of storing them locally
- Uninstall or reinstall larger apps you rarely use
Doing regular maintenance by removing unused files, apps, and media you no longer need can help avoid running out of iPhone storage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my WhatsApp contacts be deleted if I delete chats?
No, deleting any WhatsApp chats will only delete the chat history and media from those conversations. Your actual contacts list will not be affected.
Can I recover deleted WhatsApp chats without a backup?
Unfortunately, no. Without a backup, deleting WhatsApp chats is permanent. Always make sure you have a recent chat backup before deleting anything important.
Will clearing WhatsApp media storage delete my chat history?
No, clearing the WhatsApp media storage through iPhone storage settings will only remove cached media files. Your chats and conversation histories will remain intact.
What gets deleted when I use ‘Clear All Chats’?
Tapping ‘Clear All Chats’ will permanently delete your entire WhatsApp chat history across all conversations. This removes all traces of chats, messages, media files, voice notes, call history, etc.
How much storage space can deleting WhatsApp content free up?
It depends on your usage, but most people can free up several hundred megabytes or even gigabytes by deleting WhatsApp content, especially media files like photos and videos.
Conclusion
WhatsApp makes it simple to delete chats, media, and app storage on your iPhone to free up valuable space. Make sure to backup your WhatsApp data regularly before deleting anything. With a few taps, you can easily clear unneeded content and recover storage capacity on your iPhone. Following the guide above, you’ll master how to delete WhatsApp content and maintain your iPhone’s storage.