All mobile and desktop apps collect cache in the background to improve load times and overall performance. WhatsApp is no exception as it collects cache files on Android and iPhone to quickly open your popular chats. But when the cache gets corrupted, you experience problems in sending messages, media, and other normal functions in the app. You need to clear WhatsApp cache on your phone.
Apart from fixing WhatsApp issues on iPhone and Android, clearing cache also frees up internal memory on your phone. This is one of the effective ways to free up storage space on your iPhone and Android phone without deleting apps. Before showing you how to clear WhatsApp cache on iPhone and Android, let’s talk a bit about it.
WhatsApp cache explained
Cache is a collection of small files that WhatsApp stores on your phone to improve app performance. Thanks to the cache, WhatsApp does not have to load everything from scratch on your phone. It can use offline cache files to quickly load messages, display images and thumbnail previews to save time and internet data.
Over time, WhatsApp collects a huge amount of cache on your phone. It can take up a lot of storage on your phones, and it can get slow or crash often if the cache data gets corrupted. It is always advisable to check and clear the cache of your frequently used apps.
Clear WhatsApp cache on Android
Android OS (OS) displays cache data from WhatsApp’s app info menu. While you can still browse the Settings app, the App Info menu is the easiest and quickest way to clear cache for a particular app. Follow the steps below to check and clear WhatsApp cache on your Android phone.
Step 1: Find the WhatsApp app icon on your Android and long press it.
2nd step: Press the “i” button to open the app info menu.
Step 3: Select “Storage & Data”.
Step 4: Check how much cache WhatsApp has collected and clear it.
Experienced WhatsApp users can easily free up hundreds of MB of storage by clearing the cache.
You can also access the same WhatsApp info menu from Android settings. The trick below lets you check all installed app data from a single menu.
Step 1: Swipe up from your Android phone’s home screen.
2nd step: Find the Settings app with a familiar gear icon.
Step 3: Select Apps and tap “all apps” from the next menu.
Step 4: Find a list of installed apps. Scroll down to WhatsApp.
Step 5: It will open a familiar app info menu. Clear cache from the “Storage & Data” menu.
If you are low on device storage, do the same for your most used apps on Android.
Clear WhatsApp Cache on iPhone
iOS does not allow you to delete an individual app’s cache. This is why you will need to delete WhatsApp documents and data from the Settings menu. The iPhone Storage menu in Settings lets you check the total WhatsApp data space on your phone. Here’s what you need to do.
Step 1: Open Settings on your iPhone.
2nd step: Scroll down to General.
Step 3: Open ‘iPhone Storage’.
Step 4: You can take a look at a detailed breakdown of storage on your iPhone. Find WhatsApp in the list. You can check WhatsApp by taking around 10GB of data on our iPhone. Press it.
Step 5: iOS offers two options for managing the cache.
Download the app: The option will free up storage space used by WhatsApp. However, he will retain the documents and data. Reinstalling WhatsApp from the App Store will restore your data.
Delete app: It will delete WhatsApp and all related data from your iPhone.
Before using the “Delete App” option, make sure to back up your WhatsApp data to iCloud or your desktop (via iTunes). If you are having trouble restoring WhatsApp backup to your iPhone, read our dedicated article to fix the problem.
Step 6: Select Delete Application and confirm your decision.
Step 7: Reinstall WhatsApp from the App Store and restore WhatsApp backup to your iPhone.
Check out our troubleshooting guide to fix issues and problems with restoring WhatsApp backup.
What Happens When You Clear WhatsApp Cache
When you clear your WhatsApp cache, the system does not delete your personal chat data. It only deletes temporary files stored on your phone’s RAM and storage. Your existing data such as messages, photos, videos, group chat, call history and voice clips remain intact on Android. After clearing WhatsApp cache, you will notice a longer startup time since the app loads everything from scratch.
Deal with whatsapp cache on phone
Clearing WhatsApp cache has two benefits. You free up a large amount of internal storage on your phone and also deal with WhatsApp misbehaving on your phone. iPhone users should take a WhatsApp backup before deleting app data. Do not proceed without taking a backup first.