WhatsApp Orphan/Unreferenced Media Cleanup - General Questions and Answers

Hello All,
Can anyone help me with one problem, please? This is regarding WhatsApp media history. It is growing too large and consuming space with unnecessary media files.
I did "Clear chat" activity for some threads I believed were obsolete. But surprisingly, although chats were cleared, media files themselves were left untouched in the file system!
As a result I now have lots of orphan media files, which are not referenced in any WhatsApp chat. I cannot simply delete WhatsApp Media folder from the file system, as I have useful media there.
So my question: is there any way to scan the WhatsApp Media folder and delete orphaned/unreferenced media files?
I'm using Galaxy S8.
Thank you!

I have exactly the same problem, also looking for a solution here.
If anyone have a clue on this, please share.
Thank you !

I'm on same page in 2019.
Whatsapp backup on android seems to do a differencial backup on all files of whatsapp folder and is always larger than whats being listed on Storage option.
My ratings are so bad: Storage says 17gb and backup says 60gb ;/
If I use file manager apps to delete dupes, some chats will not present the media.
It would be awesome to have an app to defrag whatsapp chats and media files.

Hi. I have this problem too! Storage says 19GB but actually its taking up 38GB!

Count me in as well. 2.6GB vs 3.16GB. It may not seem much but it's on a Note 5 with just 32GB of storage and I'm trying to squeeze every available byte.

Just leaving my ward.
I managed to solve this manually. Kinda. It was hell. Still a lot of orphan files.
Hope someone has an answer.

RonAshman said:
Just leaving my ward.
I managed to solve this manually. Kinda. It was hell. Still a lot of orphan files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you manage to (partially) clean up manually?

Any update on this issue ? Its driving me nuts having close to 20 gigs of unreferenced media in my phone.....I'm pretty sure Whatsapp can easily introduce a "cleanup" feature based on the same algorithm that generates the "storage" figure.
Once its done cleaning the Drive backup is as easy as deleting the old backup and creating a new one.
Question is what's the best way to submit this "feature request" which is in fact more like a bug report?

schaggo said:
How did you manage to (partially) clean up manually?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I downloaded everything to my pc and looked for duplicates martching crc.
Then for like a week I went over pictures deleting the ones I was sure I didn't need, and also used the file name to divide them by year/month.
Not really the best option.

I'm in 2022 and with the same issue for years. Love to know who to code for Android/IOS and have Whatsapp integration options so I could search for each media file agains each group or direct channel to do :
- remove duplicated/triplicated media content by replace the file reference in groups/conversations ;
- than process all orphaned files that are not located in group/conversations discussion.

Related

[Q] Where does VSCOCam store its photos?? It's "hiding" 1000+ of my photos!!

[Q] Where does VSCOCam store its photos?? It's "hiding" 1000+ of my photos!!
Specs:
Nexus 5 | Android 5.0.1
unrooted
Apps used to diagnose:
Mac - Android File Viewer
Android - X-plore, ES File Explorer
Hello everyone,
Sorry for the wall of text, long time lurker, first time posting at XDA here, hope to find a solution after days of trying on my own... I am HEARTBROKEN by vscocam on Android... :crying:
I've been using VSCOCam for 80% of my photos on my Nexus5 for the last year and half, I've taken thousands of photos and I want to back them up. The app works as follows:
Take photo using app > photo stored in internal app library > edit photo > export to android photo library (VSCOcam folder)
The VSCOCam folder is located inside /sdcard/DCIM/, but it only stores the exported/edited photos that you chose to export from the app. I cannot for the life of me find the "internal library" folder for the photos, I looked and looked and had no luck finding where the photos or any hints of the app dir itself... only the exported photos. When I looked around online apparently the iOS version has a backup feature for the internal app library when connected to iTunes, Android version ONLY has the "export" button within the app to act as a backup feature. Well that's not going to work because:
1. No select all (ctrl/cmd + A)function. I will not spend hours check marking and scrolling through thousands of thumbnails individually... makes me shudder thinking about it.
2. I will essentially be saving my photos twice or more on the phone, VSCOcam doesn't overwrite existing or even ask, it creates duplicates next to eachother.
3. Exported photos from the app loses all metadata... this one I could afford to lose but it'd be nice to have a date it was taken and not date it was exported.
In my desperation I even chatted with the costumer service staff of the company, no luck, no solution. Only export button. Apparently my cases is very isolated as I can't find anyone with the same problem as I do.... maybe I'm not that bright. :silly:
Even with my limited IT skills, I firmly believe There has to be a folder that stores all the jpg as they're taken by the camera. Instagram does it and so does almost every photo apps out there. I just need to locate that dir... Am I looking in the wrong places? Do I need to root? Please give me some advice on this!!
TL;DR - VSCOCam app is holding thousands of my photos, I can't find the directory that they're stored in. VSCO is telling me "there is no internal app folder." and tell me to spend hours exporting each one manually. I don't want to hate VSCOCam, it rocks, but this is breaking my heart!!!
mobscene8859 said:
Specs:
Nexus 5 | Android 5.0.1
unrooted
Apps used to diagnose:
Mac - Android File Viewer
Android - X-plore, ES File Explorer
Hello everyone,
Sorry for the wall of text, long time lurker, first time posting at XDA here, hope to find a solution after days of trying on my own... I am HEARTBROKEN by vscocam on Android... :crying:
I've been using VSCOCam for 80% of my photos on my Nexus5 for the last year and half, I've taken thousands of photos and I want to back them up. The app works as follows:
Take photo using app > photo stored in internal app library > edit photo > export to android photo library (VSCOcam folder)
The VSCOCam folder is located inside /sdcard/DCIM/, but it only stores the exported/edited photos that you chose to export from the app. I cannot for the life of me find the "internal library" folder for the photos, I looked and looked and had no luck finding where the photos or any hints of the app dir itself... only the exported photos. When I looked around online apparently the iOS version has a backup feature for the internal app library when connected to iTunes, Android version ONLY has the "export" button within the app to act as a backup feature. Well that's not going to work because:
1. No select all (ctrl/cmd + A)function. I will not spend hours check marking and scrolling through thousands of thumbnails individually... makes me shudder thinking about it.
2. I will essentially be saving my photos twice or more on the phone, VSCOcam doesn't overwrite existing or even ask, it creates duplicates next to eachother.
3. Exported photos from the app loses all metadata... this one I could afford to lose but it'd be nice to have a date it was taken and not date it was exported.
In my desperation I even chatted with the costumer service staff of the company, no luck, no solution. Only export button. Apparently my cases is very isolated as I can't find anyone with the same problem as I do.... maybe I'm not that bright. :silly:
Even with my limited IT skills, I firmly believe There has to be a folder that stores all the jpg as they're taken by the camera. Instagram does it and so does almost every photo apps out there. I just need to locate that dir... Am I looking in the wrong places? Do I need to root? Please give me some advice on this!!
TL;DR - VSCOCam app is holding thousands of my photos, I can't find the directory that they're stored in. VSCO is telling me "there is no internal app folder." and tell me to spend hours exporting each one manually. I don't want to hate VSCOCam, it rocks, but this is breaking my heart!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you will need root for this
the photos are in "/data/data/com.vsco.cam/files/images"
joanthanmajh said:
you will need root for this
the photos are in "/data/data/com.vsco.cam/files/images"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh wow thank you for this!!! I knew it!! :good:
I will try and root my phone tonight. I'll be following this guide.
So I guess after I root, I'm able to view the folders that were previously restricted using Android File Transfer?
mobscene8859 said:
Oh wow thank you for this!!! I knew it!! :good:
I will try and root my phone tonight. I'll be following this guide.
So I guess after I root, I'm able to view the folders that were previously restricted using Android File Transfer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont use android file transfer but you should be able to use es file explore to copy the photos to another folder that android file transfer can see
I'm rooted on android 5.1 and in ES File Explorer, cannot see com.vsco.cam in /data/data
I've searched for vsco, case insensitive, in root /
And only found the export directory!
Have they changed their storage? In effect, I can't even find the app!!
Bump!
I'm having the same problem. I really need to free up some space on my device, so I want to pull all my photos but I can't find them anywhere. LG Optimus 4X HD (P-880) with root access. I've checked the locations mentioned above, but with no luck. Any help would be awesome!
Up! I have the same problem than Falcon. I want to free some space but can't find the photos anywhere!
Bumping because I'd also like to extract photos that I've taken with VSCO. Although my problem is a little different, VSCO just crashes every time I try to open it and it only started happening the day after I started taking photos with it. The customer service couldn't help much except tell me that CM is an unofficial Android release and their app isn't optimized for it
OnePlus One
Android 6.0.1
CM13.0-20160419-SNAPSHOT-ZNH0EAO2O0-bacon
Has anybody found a descent solution for this problem?
Vsco is a great for the filters but the android-app is horrible. Why can't we just export the original photo's or at least locate them on our device.
Moto G, Android 5.1, unrooted

MTP / Media Storage issues –*need to deactivate indexing for one directory

Hi all,
I have a quite special issue. I hope someone here can help me or point me into the right direction.
Huawei P9 with Android 6.0, rooted.
For my purposes (*) I use a MicroSD card with 128MB capacity that contains a lot of small files (abt. 1.5 million files).
I wondered for weeks, why the phone becomes incredibly slow and hangs from time to time.
I learned that the Media Storage service could be responsible, because it tries to index all files and that can take a very long time if there are lots of files.
I deactivated Media Storage (using Titanium Backup) and BINGO! My phone is like new. Snappy, well usable.
Since I don't need MTP access to the phone, I thought it might be good now.
HOWEVER:
I just found out that ring tones don't work anymore, neither for phone ringing, nor for the alarm clock etc.
It seems that those apps also rely on the file index, that's gone now.
Without any ring or alarm tone, the phone is almost unusable again.
Do you know of any way to make the MTP / Mediastorage server ignore one directory when indexing? That would help, as I could simply let it ignore the directory on SD card that contains those 1.5 million files.
Or can you think of any other good solution for my problem?
Thank you so much!
Daniel
(*) to explain my usecase, why I need so many files on SD: I am a photographer, doing gigapixel panorama photography. For presenting my work to customers, I put my demo panoramic tours onto the SD card. These are HTML files with a data directory containing JPG tiles of the gigapixel panoramas. One panorama image consist of up to a few 100.000 files. A webserver running on the phone makes the panorama tours accessible to onboard browsers or, via WiFi hotspot, to other devices in the surrounding, e.g. a PC or tablet of the customer.
I considered solutions like an external storage (USB OTG) connected to the phone only when I present that stuff to the customer, or an entirely separate device (Pandora / Dragonbox Pyra or so) to host and serve the panorama tours, but I like to carry only one device, the small smart phone, to do it all. An extenal OSB OTG storage solution would almost fit my needs. But.. only almost, because a small storage is something that can get lost or stolen easily and that needs additional handling and provides additional points of failure, which I don't want to have in front of the customer.
Android is capable of doing it all, and my philosophy is, that a computer needs to adapt to my way of work than vice versa. This was the intention when Neumann and Zuse invented programmable computers. And I don't really want to eat humble pie here.
daniel908 said:
Hi all,
I have a quite special issue. I hope someone here can help me or point me into the right direction.
Huawei P9 with Android 6.0, rooted.
For my purposes (*) I use a MicroSD card with 128MB capacity that contains a lot of small files (abt. 1.5 million files).
I wondered for weeks, why the phone becomes incredibly slow and hangs from time to time.
I learned that the Media Storage service could be responsible, because it tries to index all files and that can take a very long time if there are lots of files.
I deactivated Media Storage (using Titanium Backup) and BINGO! My phone is like new. Snappy, well usable.
Since I don't need MTP access to the phone, I thought it might be good now.
HOWEVER:
I just found out that ring tones don't work anymore, neither for phone ringing, nor for the alarm clock etc.
It seems that those apps also rely on the file index, that's gone now.
Without any ring or alarm tone, the phone is almost unusable again.
Do you know of any way to make the MTP / Mediastorage server ignore one directory when indexing? That would help, as I could simply let it ignore the directory on SD card that contains those 1.5 million files.
Or can you think of any other good solution for my problem?
Thank you so much!
Daniel
(*) to explain my usecase, why I need so many files on SD: I am a photographer, doing gigapixel panorama photography. For presenting my work to customers, I put my demo panoramic tours onto the SD card. These are HTML files with a data directory containing JPG tiles of the gigapixel panoramas. One panorama image consist of up to a few 100.000 files. A webserver running on the phone makes the panorama tours accessible to onboard browsers or, via WiFi hotspot, to other devices in the surrounding, e.g. a PC or tablet of the customer.
I considered solutions like an external storage (USB OTG) connected to the phone only when I present that stuff to the customer, or an entirely separate device (Pandora / Dragonbox Pyra or so) to host and serve the panorama tours, but I like to carry only one device, the small smart phone, to do it all. An extenal OSB OTG storage solution would almost fit my needs. But.. only almost, because a small storage is something that can get lost or stolen easily and that needs additional handling and provides additional points of failure, which I don't want to have in front of the customer.
Android is capable of doing it all, and my philosophy is, that a computer needs to adapt to my way of work than vice versa. This was the intention when Neumann and Zuse invented programmable computers. And I don't really want to eat humble pie here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's an Xposed module that can do exactly what you're asking. But I'm not sure how nicely the xposed framework will work with your Huawei device (assuming you're still stock). You can check it out if you feel its worth any hassle that might be involved. Here's the link to the forum and a screenshot of the app's description & capabilities
https://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/xposed-xposed-media-scanner-optimizer-t2942609
GREAT! THANKS!
I didn't know that an XPosed module existed that could solve that problem.
An attempt to install XPosed a few months ago has failed.
But I retried today with the Wanam build (official one failed back then) and it worked well. Downloaded this module now and will see how it works.
Thank you so much!
Quick question:
The manual for the Media Scanner Optimizer module says
"Directories: If checked the media scanner will only scan directories that have a .scanMedia file (i.e. an empty file with a dot as first part of the name similar to the .noMedia file). Use a file explorer app to create this file. This file can be placed in a directory that may contain subdirectories. The subdirectories will be scanned as well. If unchecked all directories will be scanned (except for the ones containing a .noMedia file - this default behavior of the media scanner is not altered by the Xposed Media Scanner Optimizer)."
(source: http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.thomashofmann.xposed.mediascanneroptimizer)
Does that mean, in my case I coud simply have placed a .noMedia file in the directory with the millions of files and my problem would have been solved, even without XPosed?
Somewhere I read that the media storage service does NOT care about the .noMedia files, so I refused experimenting with this quite early in my research phase.
Do you have experiences, if this really works or not?
daniel908 said:
Quick question:
The manual for the Media Scanner Optimizer module says
"Directories: If checked the media scanner will only scan directories that have a .scanMedia file (i.e. an empty file with a dot as first part of the name similar to the .noMedia file). Use a file explorer app to create this file. This file can be placed in a directory that may contain subdirectories. The subdirectories will be scanned as well. If unchecked all directories will be scanned (except for the ones containing a .noMedia file - this default behavior of the media scanner is not altered by the Xposed Media Scanner Optimizer)."
(source: http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.thomashofmann.xposed.mediascanneroptimizer)
Does that mean, in my case I coud simply have placed a .noMedia file in the directory with the millions of files and my problem would have been solved, even without XPosed?
Somewhere I read that the media storage service does NOT care about the .noMedia files, so I refused experimenting with this quite early in my research phase.
Do you have experiences, if this really works or not?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I initially thought about the .nomedia alternative. But I wasn't clear on if the 1.5 million files you have were actually media files. If they are then creating a .nomedia file should do the trick. If not, then you have the Xposed module
I personally have a few .nomedia files here and there on my SD card. And it does what its supposed to, ie; stops any media file that's present in those folders from showing up in the Gallery/music player.
So I guess its safe to assume that they weren't indexed either
Freewander10 said:
I initially thought about the .nomedia alternative. But I wasn't clear on if the 1.5 million files you have were actually media files. If they are then creating a .nomedia file should do the trick. If not, then you have the Xposed module
I personally have a few .nomedia files here and there on my SD card. And it does what its supposed to, ie; stops any media file that's present in those folders from showing up in the Gallery/music player.
So I guess its safe to assume that they weren't indexed either
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought the .nomedia trick would only work, if the Xposed module was there?
Or does it work by default, even on a non-rooted stock ROM?
Thise mana files that I have are almost all JPG files. There are a few .js and .xml files, too, that control how the .jpgs are rendered on the client's browser, also some video files that are embedded into the virtual tours, but about 99.5% of the files are .jpg.
daniel908 said:
I thought the .nomedia trick would only work, if the Xposed module was there?
Or does it work by default, even on a non-rooted stock ROM?
Thise mana files that I have are almost all JPG files. There are a few .js and .xml files, too, that control how the .jpgs are rendered on the client's browser, also some video files that are embedded into the virtual tours, but about 99.5% of the files are .jpg.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't matter what type of files you have. If the folder has a .nomedia file, it will not be scanned for anything.
This is standard android behavior, and does not require xposed to be installed.

Android 11 and .nomedia file

I was about to post a question about this, but I just figured this out myself. My phone recently updated to Android 11. I have an SD-Card which has music on it - along with a lot of album art. Since the update, all these album art photos have been cluttering up my gallery. Every time I add a .nomedia file in here (which also was there before the update), it seems to get automatically deleted (no, not hidden). I tried copying a .nomedia file from elsewhere on the phone. I even tried popping out the SD-Card and adding the file via PC. As soon as Android touches it, it deletes the file again.
So, here is the issue. With Android 11, it is creating some default folders (I wish it wouldn't clutter up things with these empty folders that I never need or use). Those default folders include: Music, Pictures, Movies. These are created at the top level on the SD-Card and on internal storage. So, if you are also using one of those folders for something, it's going to auto delete the .nomedia file. In my case, I just moved my music into a Musics folder instead(and ensured it has a .nomedia file, of course.
Hopefully this will save someone else from wasting their time trying to figure out why this is happening!
pacaveli420 said:
I was about to post a question about this, but I just figured this out myself. My phone recently updated to Android 11. I have an SD-Card which has music on it - along with a lot of album art. Since the update, all these album art photos have been cluttering up my gallery. Every time I add a .nomedia file in here (which also was there before the update), it seems to get automatically deleted (no, not hidden). I tried copying a .nomedia file from elsewhere on the phone. I even tried popping out the SD-Card and adding the file via PC. As soon as Android touches it, it deletes the file again.
So, here is the issue. With Android 11, it is creating some default folders (I wish it wouldn't clutter up things with these empty folders that I never need or use). Those default folders include: Music, Pictures, Movies. These are created at the top level on the SD-Card and on internal storage. So, if you are also using one of those folders for something, it's going to auto delete the .nomedia file. In my case, I just moved my music into a Musics folder instead(and ensured it has a .nomedia file, of course.
Hopefully this will save someone else from wasting their time trying to figure out why this is happening!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This makes no sense, please explain in more detail.
android1977 said:
This makes no sense, please explain in more detail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
pacaveli420 said:
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks that's what I did and got lucky, I was so desperate I signed up to XDA just to comment I gotta say XDA I love your site and been reading for a couple year's now, enjoy the information provided, thanks guy's for all your hard work
pacaveli420 said:
If you're storing your music files in any of the default folders, Android is going to auto delete your .nomedia file if you try to put one there. Ergo, the solution is you need to store your music in a folder named something else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for saving my media library! I've been tortured by this issue since using the new phone, finally!
hello, i just get Android 11 on my MI A3, and those folders ( music, pictures, movies )appears on my sd card, they are useless for me, is there a way to delete them?
before Android 11, i didn't have this problem because i choosed " use sd as external support " instead of "use sd as extended memory" when inserting the sd card, but now even if i make the same choice, the folders are there and i can't delete them.
Sort of off topic but not really:
How do I stop it from creating these default folders? It's extremely annoying. I don't have my SD card structured that way and never have. I've deleted the default music, movies, etc folders numerous times now as they just clutter up the root directory and they keep reappearing. Is there a solution to this?
This seems to be a part of Android 11s default folder structure which no one ever bothered to do something about. I wouldn't be surprised if it's there for "security reasons" as well as a communist one. As in you only have the option to use these "secure" folders or else it won't show up in your apps at all.
This might be a way for Google to slowly faze out SDCards entirely while only giving you the option to use said folders for your "private" stuff akin to how IOS (kinda) works. In other words, they are doing it on purpose and no one ever bothered to read the fine print.
Obviously private music and other media collections is the root (see what I did there) cause of the problem. They don't want you to have those at all, And want you to use streaming services instead (tinfoil hat). Which is probably what these folders will probably end up being used for.
Netflix and Spotify allow you to store music on your device, but it's encrypted and will probably end up there at some point in Androids lifecycle. Obviously these files don't need .nomedia since the files are encrypted and will only show up in said app either way which makes the above meaningless.
Most of this is speculation obviously, but we've slowly been moving towards this trend if you look at how System apps were split into app and priv-app and so on. At some point in time only certain apps that has had the blessing of Google will be allowed to read anything off your storage. This happened with Chrome not to long ago where they blocked side-loaded extensions from running.
You will slowly see Android turning into IOS because they (Google) and big-tech in general wants 100% control of what you can and can't do. And everything based on AOSP or LOS is gonna follow suit because no one gives a flying fudge because that's too bothersome. The fragmentation of custom builds based on LOS/AOSP in general already shows that this has always been the case for the last 10 years. Linux in general is no different either as can be seen with wokeism. Except that was through decimation via woke people and not big-tech.
I was going crazy thinking this issue was specific to my samsung's stock rom. I started searching about this once I noticed it on LOS 18. Glad I'm not alone
I tend to be a little OCD about my folder structures but at this point I don't mind making a separate folder to avoid album arts in my gallery.
I believe I found a solution to this. It's been about a week or two with no further incident now. My solution was to delete the default folders from the root of the SD card because I don't use them, then create blank files that used those names. Haven't had a problem since.
I use the top level pictures folder because of a compatibility issue with programs that have small file path character limits that cause the program to hang. I don't use them anymore but I haven't had a reason to move it back where I had it previously and that would only make the default folder issue worse if I did. Or at least it would have until now with this discovery.
I do not use the movies and music folders, and if I move my pictures folder back where I had it I won't use that one either. Having them pop up on their own to clutter my root directory on both my SD card and my phone itself was very annoying. After deleting the movies and music folders off of the root of my SD card for the billionth time and getting rid of the empty default folders on my phone again, I created two blank files on my SD card root called Music and Movies. Ever since then the default folders haven't reappeared. On top of that, it hasn't created any ".thumbnails" folders all over the place like it always used to do either. That includes doing so on the internal phone storage. Creating those files on the SD card seems to have broken the whole process. I imagine the same would work vice versa for OP since it sounds like they use those default folders. Find an empty default folder on internal storage, delete it, create a file and name it the name of the folder you deleted (case sensitive), and that should disable the annoying default folder management process too. I can't vouch for that method, but I can vouch for it working when you do so on the SD card.
I just noticed this today on my tab s7+.
From what I can tell, the .nomedia file nolonger does anything on its own. However, if I add the .nomedia file to a folder, then rename the folder placing a . in front, of course it hides the entire folder. When I rename the folder again, removing the ., the .nomedia file now works. No matter how many times I rename the folder, the gallery does not see it until I remove the .nomedia file.
pool_shark said:
I just noticed this today on my tab s7+.
From what I can tell, the .nomedia file nolonger does anything on its own. However, if I add the .nomedia file to a folder, then rename the folder placing a . in front, of course it hides the entire folder. When I rename the folder again, removing the ., the .nomedia file now works. No matter how many times I rename the folder, the gallery does not see it until I remove the .nomedia file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you pool shark.. i tried what you did/suggested and it worked. thanks.

Where are the WhatsApp files on Android 11?

I can no longer find the media files that used to be in /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp until Android 10. I've searched the following locations with no luck:
/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.whatsapp
/storage/0BD9-A981/Android/data/com.whatsapp
/data/data/com.whatsapp
/data/user/0/com.whatsapp
/data/user_de/0/com.whatsapp
Any help is welcome. Thank you!
KaMyKaSii said:
I can no longer find the media files that used to be in /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp until Android 10. I've searched the following locations with no luck:
/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.whatsapp
/storage/0BD9-A981/Android/data/com.whatsapp
/data/data/com.whatsapp
/data/user/0/com.whatsapp
/data/user_de/0/com.whatsapp
Any help is welcome. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to locate the folder using the command:
Code:
ls /data/data/com.whatsapp*
VD171 said:
Try to locate the folder using the command:
Code:
ls /data/data/com.whatsapp*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just found the folder. But thanks anyway. Here's the location for those who also need it:
/storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp
Hi.. In Android 10, Whatsapp folder used to be in root folder (emulated/0), but in Android 11, it has moved to Android/media folder. The big problem it has is - everytime you wipe data to install a ROM, Whatsapp along with media needs to be backed up. Does someone know a workaround here so that WhatsApp has its folder in the root directory? Thanks.
I wouldn't call /sdcard (/storage/emulated/0) the root directory, but ok. Whether the whatsapp folder is placed directly in /sdcard or in /sdcard/Android/media doesn't make a difference as to whether you have to back it up, as it will be on the userdata partition in both cases.
how about my case, im using samsung android 11, and i clone whatsapp with the built-in app = dualapp, but the problem is i can't received a media file from other people like document, images, videos, etc. and cannot sending any files too from my device, i've checked the dualapp\android\media and there is no com.whatsapp folder inside. anyone can help me with this case?
thanks before.
maleforwork said:
how about my case, im using samsung android 11, and i clone whatsapp with the built-in app = dualapp, but the problem is i can't received a media file from other people like document, images, videos, etc. and cannot sending any files too from my device, i've checked the dualapp\android\media and there is no com.whatsapp folder inside. anyone can help me with this case?
thanks before.
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Click to collapse
I am in the same boat. I can no longer find the dual WhatsApp files, and that version is like a redhead stepchild, cannot add stickers, doesn't recognize file types, etc. All since Android 11 moved the dual app files "somewhere".
maleforwork said:
how about my case, im using samsung android 11, and i clone whatsapp with the built-in app = dualapp, but the problem is i can't received a media file from other people like document, images, videos, etc. and cannot sending any files too from my device, i've checked the dualapp\android\media and there is no com.whatsapp folder inside. anyone can help me with this case?
thanks before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, it happened this morning. I am having my exams and because of this I can't access my pdf notes anymore. All of this is so frustrating :/
Someone also got trouble with loading the "WhatsApp Images" Folder over a File Explorer?
When i wanna access it from several Apps like File Explorer or Backup Apps, it will load like endless, some minutes at least.
Have mor than 10 000 Pictures in it but before it loaded always immediately.
If i am in TWRP i can access the Folder but don't scroll down with the bar, just around 1/3 of the Page. Only if i scroll over the Display every File it will show me someting, otherwise it shows just Empty over some Files, like there would be a File Limitation?
Chrypsisilon said:
Someone also got trouble with loading the "WhatsApp Images" Folder over a File Explorer?
When i wanna access it from several Apps like File Explorer or Backup Apps, it will load like endless, some minutes at least.
Have mor than 10 000 Pictures in it but before it loaded always immediately.
If i am in TWRP i can access the Folder but don't scroll down with the bar, just around 1/3 of the Page. Only if i scroll over the Display every File it will show me someting, otherwise it shows just Empty over some Files, like there would be a File Limitation?
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Click to collapse
Exactly the same here. Switched to Samsung android 11 3 weeks ago and since a few days Whatapp app backup (80mb) took an hour instead of less than 2 minutes. Quickly found out that WA folder had been moved and that it now takes 10-60 seconds to open WA images folder (9400 pics) instead of < 1sec at previous location. Yesterday I reinstalled WA and everything was placed back in the original folder (0/WhatsApp) and everything was fast again. But tonight (00:00) everything has been moved to Android/media/com.whatsapp and the backup of whatapp is already running for 50 minutes now. The status for a very long time is: "Prepairing google drive backup".
This is very frustrating and I don't understand how they can ruin this for so many people (see google store reviews).
I don't understand why one location is so much slower than another directory. Is exactly the same storage. Does it have to do with indexes? Who is going to offer a solution for this, Samsung or Whatsapp?
Google or WhatsApp have had to get a solution, but if the wan't?
Because i am using OnePlus, so we know that it shouldn't be a Mobile Phone Manufacturer issue.
Crazy that even the built in Backup won't work because i just use other ways like "FolderSync" or "Synology DS Cloud" Backup.
Even Built in File Explorer or such as "X-Plore" and whatever, won't load the Folder until there are gone some Minutes.
Can also just guess why, but Indexing should be done if it is.
Did also some other trys with a Folder which has just 5130 Pictures (copy of some Pictures).
Used "X-plore" to easy Move the Folder around.
- Move Picture Folder in "Android" Folder will work well but every of the 3 subfolder "data", "media", "obb" will get in trouble.
- Move Picture Folder into "data", it will take a longer Time, also "obb" Folder which is a kind faster.
- Move Picture into "media", it will moved immeaditly like usual at the Phone.
Access Picture Folder just under "Android" Folder it will work fine, but if you wanna Access this Folder under "data", "media" or "obb" you have to wait and enjoy the running circle symbol.
So is the question, what is different with all the subfolder under "Android", like they would have a Speed limit or additional encryption?
First you need to do a whole backup of your chat so that you can migrate the chat information from respectable whatsapp to Fouad Whatsapp.
I am also facing this problem yesterday when I upgrade my smartphone from android 10 to android 11. But after some research, I found the solution. Here are the complete details:
Whatsapp folder in android 11
For images
Android\media\com.whatsapp\WhatsApp\Media\WhatsApp Images
Guys, I'm using Samsung phone too and my WhatsApp media files is in a mess too since the location change a couple of months ago. Now I have media stores in these 2 folders, just like you guys:
1) Whatsapp/Media
2) Android/media/com.whatsapp/Whatsapp/Media (new location)
Now my issue is, I have photos back from year 2016. I can view it in Whatsapp chat (some of them can't locate anymore) but i can't find it in both the directories mentioned above. When I select 'view in gallery', and then i use MiXplorer to check the image location, it says: (refer to attached screenshots)
Path: content://com.whatsapp.provider.media/item (which i guess it is in obb folder)
How is this even possible? The image is not lost but it is not accessible by me anymore and I cant back it up. Due to this mess, I really want to tidy up my media files and move them into single location, presumably the new location but the missing files stop me from doing it. It's bugging me for a few months now
maleforwork said:
how about my case, im using samsung android 11, and i clone whatsapp with the built-in app = dualapp, but the problem is i can't received a media file from other people like document, images, videos, etc. and cannot sending any files too from my device, i've checked the dualapp\android\media and there is no com.whatsapp folder inside. anyone can help me with this case?
thanks before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had installed beta APK and it has some bugs. Today I've decided tou reinstall the sable APK when i uninstalled the beta App the whole folder form android/media also deletd and I've lost everything thing. I had backed up to google drive a few days ago now i could not found the backup. The backup i got is of Dec 2020.
Guys, try this path: <SD-CARD>/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp
I found all my whatsapp media there since android 11 upgrade (Samsung M31)
All my files keep on /sdcard/WhatsApp/Media even on Android 11.
Some solution here about the Access Time from the Images Folder?
When i Access (does not matter which File Explorer or Backup Tool) then i have to wait over 10 Minutes and most of them still won't show any pictures. Of Coursee i have over 10'000 Files in it but at the old Location it took me just a few seconds.
Chrypsisilon said:
Some solution here about the Access Time from the Images Folder?
When i Access (does not matter which File Explorer or Backup Tool) then i have to wait over 10 Minutes and most of them still won't show any pictures. Of Coursee i have over 10'000 Files in it but at the old Location it took me just a few seconds.
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Click to collapse
Any OS has problems to deal with folders that contains millions of files.
Certainly, you need to clean the folder.

Whatsapp server side upgrade from last night - all data moved to android/media/com.whatsapp folder from /internalstorage/whatsapp

Hi,
since last night I cannot access any of my photos, videos, voice recordings, stickers etc in the whatsapp app.
I've noticed that a new folder was created under /android/med/whatsapp.com, but only tiny bit of the files was moved there.
Ther rest still stays in the older location /internal storage/whatsapp. But whatsapp does not take info from these folders and it looks like it's all empty.
What I've tried so far - move a few gfiles to the new location - still whatsapp app claims there are no photos or videos to be shown (although I moved them to the new location).
Tried to backup to to google drive and restore - I get an error.
I know that it's caused due to android API 30 on android 11 and up - apps can access only their own folders, but it seems like the migration on whatsapp's part was horrible.
I have friends with the same situation but with a few files. My whatsapp back is around 39 GB.
Anyone found a solution yet? I contacted whatsapp support with no feedback so far.
whatsappbug said:
Hi,
since last night I cannot access any of my photos, videos, voice recordings, stickers etc in the whatsapp app.
I've noticed that a new folder was created under /android/med/whatsapp.com, but only tiny bit of the files was moved there.
Ther rest still stays in the older location /internal storage/whatsapp. But whatsapp does not take info from these folders and it looks like it's all empty.
What I've tried so far - move a few gfiles to the new location - still whatsapp app claims there are no photos or videos to be shown (although I moved them to the new location).
Tried to backup to to google drive and restore - I get an error.
I know that it's caused due to android API 30 on android 11 and up - apps can access only their own folders, but it seems like the migration on whatsapp's part was horrible.
I have friends with the same situation but with a few files. My whatsapp back is around 39 GB.
Anyone found a solution yet? I contacted whatsapp support with no feedback so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you find any solution? I am facing the same issue.

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