WhatsApp is testing a smarter way to clear storage

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

If you’ve ever opened your iPhone storage settings and discovered that WhatsApp has quietly eaten several gigabytes of space like a raccoon in a trash can, good news: help is on the way. 

According to a new report from WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is testing a feature that finally admits the obvious: most of your storage problems are caused by old memes, gigantic videos, and files you absolutely did not need forever.

WhatsApp is working on something called the “Advanced chat clearing tool,” which sounds boring but does something incredibly satisfying. 

It lets you selectively delete specific things inside a chat, like photos, videos, GIFs, documents, or voice notes, without nuking the entire conversation. 

Even better, it shows you how much storage you’ll get back, turning cleanup into a small but deeply rewarding victory.

Until now, clearing WhatsApp chats has been an all-or-nothing situation. 

You either deleted the whole chat history or lived forever with a 500MB video from a family group chat that someone sent “just in case.” 

WhatsApp technically had a “Manage Storage” section, but it was about as precise as using a chainsaw to trim your nails.

This new tool changes that. You’ll be able to surgically remove junk while keeping the messages themselves intact. That means deleting a massive video file without erasing years of context, jokes, or arguments. 

It’s especially welcome news for people using Apple’s iPhone models with 64GB or 128GB of storage, aka people who see the “iPhone Storage Almost Full” warning more often than they see their lock screen wallpaper.

In practical terms, this means you can finally delete that 100MB PDF you opened once, or the GIF collection your friends thought was hilarious in 2019. 

Less clutter also means smaller cloud backups, which your future self will quietly appreciate.

Currently, the advanced chat clearing tool is only available to WhatsApp beta testers on iOS. 

However, WhatsApp has a solid track record of rolling popular beta features out to everyone within weeks or months. An Android version is likely to follow.