How to save WhatsApp photos to your camera roll (iPhone and Android)

For many families, WhatsApp is where the photos are. The grandparents' group, the school parents' chat, the cousins' holiday group: every week brings dozens of photos you'd like to keep. But on iPhone, WhatsApp photos often never reach your Photos app. They stay inside WhatsApp, where they're hard to find, don't get backed up with your other photos, and can't be found by any photo app. Here's how to fix that, on iPhone and Android.

Why WhatsApp photos go missing on iPhone

On iPhone, WhatsApp keeps media inside WhatsApp unless it's told to save it to your photo library. The setting is called Save to Photos. If it's off, photos you receive are only in WhatsApp's own storage.

Save all new WhatsApp photos (iPhone)

1. Open WhatsApp.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Chats.
4. Turn on Save to Photos.

From now on, photos and videos you receive in any chat are saved to your Photos app as well. WhatsApp may ask for permission to add to your photo library; allow it.

Save photos from just one chat (iPhone)

You might want the family group's photos but not the football club's memes. WhatsApp lets you set this per chat:

1. Open the chat.
2. Tap the chat's name at the top.
3. Tap Save to Photos.
4. Choose Always to save this chat's photos, Never to stop them, or Default to follow your main setting.

A tidy combination: turn the main setting off, then set your family chats to Always.

Save older photos you've already received (iPhone)

The setting only applies to new photos. For ones already in a chat:

• One photo: open it, tap the share button and choose Save.
• Several photos: tap the chat's name, open Media, Links and Docs, tap Select, choose the photos, then tap the share button and Save.

Android

On most Android phones, WhatsApp photos already appear in your gallery, in WhatsApp folders. If they don't:

1. Open WhatsApp and tap the three-dot menu, then Settings.
2. Tap Chats.
3. Turn on Media visibility.

You can also set it per chat, from the chat's info screen, under Media visibility.

Keep it under control

Saving everything can fill your phone fast. A few habits help:

• Save per chat, not everything.
• Clear out stickers and memes now and then; they're often saved as images.
• Check your storage in your phone's settings if space gets tight.

Why it matters

Once WhatsApp photos are in your photo library, they're backed up with the rest of your photos, and they're findable: by date, by place, by the people in them. Photo apps can only organise the photos they can see. If you want to find every photo of your child, the ones that arrived by WhatsApp are often the ones you'd miss.

They also turn up in memories. Photos saved from a family chat appear in "on this day" views alongside your own, which is often where the best ones resurface. See on this day and photo memories.

How the Photohawk app helps

Photohawk Family, our app for your family's photos, is coming soon to iPhone. It knows most family photos arrive by WhatsApp:

• A reminder on iPhone. After its first scan, the app shows a tip with the Save to Photos steps above, and they're always in its settings.
• Save to Photohawk. For photos you received before turning the setting on, select them in WhatsApp, tap share and choose Save to Photohawk. It saves them into your photo library, and Photohawk finds the people in them.
• Nothing else is read. Photohawk never reads your chats. It only sees photos in your photo library, and its Save to Photohawk option only adds photos you've chosen.

Once they're in, Photohawk groups the faces in your photos into people and lets you search the way you remember: "Maya with a dog". You can then send people the photos they're in. Many families find that a better home for photos than a busy group chat: see family photo sharing without social media.

Photohawk Family is coming soon to iPhone, with Android to follow. Keep an eye on photohawk.com for the launch.