Short answer
First turn off auto-save. Viber: More → Settings → Media → Save to gallery. Telegram: Settings → Data and Storage → Save to Gallery (Android) or Save to Photos (iPhone) for private chats, groups and channels. WhatsApp: Settings → Chats → Media visibility (Android) or Save to Photos (iPhone). Then clear what’s already saved: on Android each messenger has its own folder; on iPhone it’s all in your main library.
Memes, greeting cards, photos from work and school chats, forwards from channels: messengers save them to your gallery automatically, and after a few months there are thousands of other people’s pictures in it. Stop new ones from arriving first, then clear the old ones.
Viber: turn off Save to gallery
- Open Viber and tap More, then Settings.
- Open Media.
- Turn off Save to gallery. Photos you receive no longer go to your phone’s gallery, and you can still save the ones you want by hand.
The same screen has auto-download over mobile network (and over Wi‑Fi on Android). With it off, photos download only when you open them. On iPhone, Keep media sets how long Viber keeps files in its own storage: a week, a month, a year or forever.
Telegram: Save to Gallery and the cache
- Open Telegram and go to Settings → Data and Storage.
- Find Save to Gallery (on Android) or Save to Photos (on iPhone).
- Open private chats, groups and channels one by one and turn off saving photos and videos. You can add exceptions for single chats, for example keep saving only from your family chat.
Apart from the gallery, Telegram has its own cache. It doesn’t show in your gallery but takes space too: Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Usage → Clear Telegram Cache. Media stays in the Telegram cloud and can be downloaded again. The same screen lets you choose how long to Keep Media. Clearing the cache doesn’t touch copies already saved to your gallery.
WhatsApp: Media visibility and Save to Photos
By default, WhatsApp on Android shows the photos and videos you receive in your gallery. On iPhone it has its own switch.
- Android: tap ⋮ → Settings → Chats and turn off Media visibility. For one chat: open it, tap the contact or group name → Media visibility → No → OK.
- iPhone: Settings → Chats → turn off Save to Photos. For one chat: tap the contact or group name → Save to Photos → Never.
These switches stop new photos from being saved. Whatever is already in your gallery usually stays there, so clear it separately. WhatsApp doesn’t save media from chats with disappearing messages to your photos.
Android: clear what’s already in messenger folders
On Android, messengers keep photos in their own folders, and gallery apps show each folder as an album. They’re usually called Telegram, Viber and WhatsApp Images (videos: WhatsApp Video).
- Open Google Photos (Collections) or your Gallery app (Albums) and find the messenger’s album.
- Touch and hold one photo, then tap or drag across the others to select them.
- Tap Delete and confirm, then empty the trash to free the space.
Files by Google can also suggest deleting WhatsApp media on its Clean screen.
iPhone: chat photos in your library
On iPhone, whatever messengers save lands in your main library, next to your own photos. There’s no separate folder like on Android, so clearing it takes some manual work.
- A messenger album. Some messengers also put saved items in their own album named after the app. If you see one among your albums in Collections, open it, tap Select → Select All and delete.
- Newest first. After a busy chat, go through your library from the newest photos: chat pictures usually arrive in batches.
- Don’t forget Recently Deleted. The space frees up once you empty that album.
Sort chat photos by swiping in Shoo
Among the memes there are photos worth keeping: documents, tickets, pictures of family. Deleting everything at once is risky, and scrolling through thousands of pictures in the gallery takes ages. In Shoo photos come one at a time: swipe right to keep, left to queue for deletion.
- Android: in Shoo’s Settings, set the Source to the Telegram, Viber or WhatsApp Images folder. Leave the period at All time: images saved from messengers often have no capture date, so date filters don’t show them.
- iPhone: if a messenger made its own album, pick it as the Source (this needs full photo access). Otherwise keep All photos with the period New since last session, so each time you only see what arrived since, chat pictures included.
Check the queue before deleting: you can restore any photo from it. On iPhone, deleted items go to Recently Deleted. On Android, deletion is permanent.
iPhone version coming soon.
Questions
If I delete a photo from my gallery, does it disappear from the chat?
The message stays in the chat. Telegram keeps media in its cloud, so you can download the photo again. In WhatsApp, a file deleted from your phone may no longer open in the chat, so save anything important separately first.
Does clearing the Telegram cache free up space?
Yes, it frees the space Telegram itself uses, and the media stays in the Telegram cloud. But photos already saved to your gallery are separate copies, and clearing the cache doesn’t delete them.
Why don’t Telegram photos show up in Shoo with “Older than 30 days”?
On Android, Shoo’s date filters go by the capture date, and many images from messengers don’t have one. Pick the messenger’s folder as the Source with the period set to All time, and they’ll show up.