There are two ways to download pictures from WhatsApp to your smart­phone. They are either auto-saved in the WhatsApp folder on your mobile device or you can proceed manually via the “Share” option and save your pictures in the photo app or gallery.

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How to save WhatsApp pictures au­to­mat­i­cal­ly on Android

Step 1: In WhatsApp, select the three-dot button at the top right, then “Settings” and finally “Chats”.

Step 2: Check the “Media vis­i­bil­i­ty” option. If activated, WhatsApp photos are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly saved under “WhatsApp Images” in your “Gallery” app.

Image: Screenshot of the WhatsApp chat settings on Android
Enable “Media vis­i­bil­i­ty” so that the images you receive on WhatsApp are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly saved in your gallery.
Note

You can customize which people or groups on WhatsApp au­to­mat­i­cal­ly download and save images to your gallery. To adjust this setting, open the chat, tap the name at the top, and select “Media vis­i­bil­i­ty.” If you don’t want media from a specific chat to be saved in your gallery, choose “No.”

How to save WhatsApp pictures manually on Android

Step 1: If you want to save WhatsApp pictures shared with you, tap on the image in the relevant chat. Next, select the three-dot button in the upper right corner.

Step 2: You’ll be given a few different choices. Select “Share”.

Image: Save WhatsApp images from a chat on Android
After clicking on the three-dot button, select “Share” from the options displayed.

Step 3: Search for the “Upload to Photos” app. You’ll see your Google account. Tap “Upload” at the bottom right.

Image: Upload WhatsApp photos using Google Photos
Before you can save your WhatsApp picture, you must first upload it via Google Photos. To do this, tap on the cor­re­spond­ing button.

Step 4: Open the Google “Photos” app and select the image you wish to save. Click the three-dot button and finally the “Download” option. The down­loaded WhatsApp images will now be visible and saved to your gallery.

Tip

With IONOS HiDrive, you can store, share, and edit your images centrally in the cloud. Choose between 100 to 2000 GB of storage space to suit your needs.

How to save WhatsApp pictures au­to­mat­i­cal­ly on iPhone

Step 1: To au­to­mat­i­cal­ly back up your pictures, you need to give per­mis­sion to do so in WhatsApp. To do this, select “Settings” at the bottom right of your app.

Step 2: Then select “Chats” and activate “Save to Photos”.

Step 3: You’ll find a folder named “WhatsApp” in the iPhone “Photos” app. All photos shared with you on WhatsApp end up in this folder.

Step 4: Ad­di­tion­al­ly, for each of your chats, you can save all media or discard it all. To do this, simply tap on the name of your con­ver­sa­tion partner or group at the top of the chat and then tap on “Save to Photos”.

Image: Screenshot of the WhatsApp chat settings on iOS
With “Save to Photos”, you can specify whether to save all or none of your WhatsApp pictures to your iPhone.

Step 5: You’ve now got three options. “Default” will cor­re­spond to the “Settings” you already made for “Save to Photos”. By selecting “Always”, all WhatsApp pictures you receive in the chat are saved. With “Never”, no backup is made. This feature is handy if you want to save only images from selected chats.

Tip

Want to know what to do when your WhatsApp storage is full?. The answer is in our detailed Digital Guide article.

How to save WhatsApp pictures manually on iPhone

Step 1: When you want to save a select WhatsApp photo to your device, simply tap on it.

Image: Save images by tapping on iOS
WhatsApp images, like this one of the cake, can easily be tapped on in the chat and saved with just a few clicks.

Step 2: Next, the image is enlarged on your display. Select the share icon at the bottom left.

Step 3: You’re now presented with several different options. Tap “Save” and the image will be saved to your iPhone “Photos” app.

Image: Save image on your smartphone
After selecting Apple‘s Share icon, you’ll see several options, with the first one saving the image directly to your smart­phone.

Once your WhatsApp images are down­loaded to your smart­phone, you can edit or print them. Or you could per­ma­nent­ly back up your photos by using storage media such as cloud storage, memory cards, external hard drives, or the internal one on your PC or laptop.

Tip

Our articles on saving WhatsApp status videos and saving WhatApp audio may also interest you.

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