WhatsApp Wants to Make It Easier to Manage Space Taken by the Chat App

WhatsApp is reportedly redesigning the Storage Usage section of its chat app with a list of options to let you easily organise your storage and delete unnecessary files that were forwarded or shared through the app. While the messaging app is yet to enable the new storage tools for its users, a screenshot has been leaked online to give a hint at what's cooking up behind the scenes. The redesigned Storage Usage section is likely to come to the WhatsApp for Android app in the coming days. However, iPhone users are also likely to receive a similar treatment at a later stage.

To give us a glimpse of the redesigned Storage Usage section, WhatsApp features tracker WABetaInfo has shared the screenshot that shows multiple new offerings in place. It has a storage bar at the top that offers details about the portion of space consumed by the media files shared over WhatsApp. Further, the screenshot shows a Suggested clean up option that lists forwarded and large files in a thumbnail view to help users review and delete them to free up some space.

WhatsApp's redesigned Storage Usage section would show forwarded and large files in a thumbnail view
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo

WhatsApp was previously spotted redesigning its Storage Usage section with dedicated Large files and Forwarded files options in June. However, it appears that since the earlier design wasn't that interactive, the Facebook-owned company may have decided to bring a thumbnail view to it.

The screenshot also shows that apart from the redesigning, the Storage Usage section would retain the existing view of listing individual chats - arranged as per their storage size. It also suggests a search functionality in place to let users search for any particular chat in the list.

WABetaInfo reports that the new features in the Storage Usage section are currently under development and are yet to be available, even for the beta testers. The screenshot shared by the site is from WhatsApp for Android app. However, it is likely that the iPhone client may also get the redesigning alongside its Android counterpart. Some changes may come into place over what has been seen in the screenshot as the development is yet to be ready for a mass rollout.

In 2020, will WhatsApp get the killer feature that every Indian is waiting for? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.