Need space on your phone? Here's how to delete files taking up storage on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is a comprehensive messaging service, allowing you to make video calls, send audio, images, photos, videos, documents, stickers, and create groups, channels, or communities. Unfortunately, all of these actions accumulate space.

To find out how much, the first thing to do is go into your phone's storage settings. For Android devices, the storage section is displayed directly on the main screen under "Settings." For iOS, the iPhone operating system, you must first go to the "Settings" screen and then to "General." There you'll see the storage section.

On both operating systems, following these steps will show you a list of the apps taking up space on your phone, and you'll be able to see how much memory WhatsApp is using. If it's taking up too much memory, it's important to know how to free up space by deleting various files from the trash.

According to the WhatsApp Help Center, there is a tool within the app that allows you to free up storage memory.

You can find this feature under the name 'Manage Storage', and it will allow you to delete larger media files.

This action, in addition to freeing up space on your phone, helps ensure proper operation of the device and the rest of the apps you have installed. A phone with full storage can experience issues such as slowdowns, interruptions, delays, freezes, and problems when downloading files or installing new apps.

To free up space, the first thing to do is open WhatsApp and go to the 'Settings' section. Once inside, locate the section that says 'Storage and data', and then Press the first option, called 'Manage storage'.

Once inside, you'll see a graph showing the amount of storage currently in use, and just below it, an option for the largest media items. By clicking "Review and Delete," you can review, by date or size, images, videos, audios, and other files larger than 5 megabytes (MB) and delete them, either one by one or by selecting several at a time. Note that this action will delete the items from your WhatsApp archives, but they may still be saved in your photo gallery.

On the other hand, within 'Manage Storage,' you'll also see the chats that are taking up the most space. When you enter each of them, you'll see the items taking up the most space in each conversation. You can choose to delete photos, videos, audios, or files individually. Another option is to completely delete each conversation, but with this second option, in addition to deleting the files in WhatsApp, you'll also lose the messages from those chats.

Therefore, before proceeding with these steps, WhatsApp recommends creating a backup, which will provide you with a backup of any files, images, photos, or videos you may have accidentally deleted.

Beyond WhatsApp, there are other apps on phones that take up memory, and there are several steps you can take to optimize space.

The first and easiest way is to start by deleting apps you no longer use. You can do this from the 'Settings' menu, and in the 'Apps' section, tap on the ones you want to uninstall.

Another recommendation is to go to your phone's "Downloads" section, since, in addition to files received through messaging apps like WhatsApp, it's also common to have other files downloaded from the internet, social media, and email that accumulate. From the "Downloads" section, you can review and delete files you no longer consider necessary on your phone.

If you use streaming apps like Netflix or any other on your phone, keep in mind that if you download any episodes or content, while these won't appear in your phone's "Downloads," they will be stored within the app itself, in a specific download folder, and these will consume internal storage space on your phone.

The same goes for music apps like Spotify, as songs you save for offline listening will also be stored within the app, but ultimately, the app will take up more space on your phone's storage the more songs you download.

Other items that tend to take up the most memory on phones are photos and videos, so it's also a good idea to check which of these items you could delete. Remember, many phones have a "Deleted" folder that keeps photos and videos for a while before permanently deleting them. So, if you're looking to free up space, you can also go to the "Deleted" folder and permanently delete what's there and that you've already deleted from your photos and videos. If you don't want to lose these multimedia items, but do need them to stop taking up space on your phone, it may be advisable to use a cloud storage service, such as iCloud for iPhones, Google Drive, Google Photos for photos or videos, Dropbox, among others.

El Universal (Mexico) - GDA

(*) With additional information from EL TIEMPO