topic How to stop received photos from Facebook automatically saving to my phone gallery in XPERIA archive

How to stop received photos from Facebook automatically saving to my phone gallery

Claire445 — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 15:31:24 GMT

Hello,

I have been having a very annoying problem with my Xperia M. Whenever people send me photos over Facebook or Whatsapp, they automatically download to my phone gallery. I would rather keep my phone gallery for pictures that I have taken myself with my phone camera - I do not want pictures that other people have sent me appearing in it, as I would rather access them separately from Facebook or whichever application they were sent on.

I delete these photos when they appear in my gallery, but for some reason certain photos from Facebook keep reappearing in my gallery every few days; months after I have deleted them. Therefore I constantly have to go to my gallery and delete 20/30 photos at a time to prevent my phone memory from clogging up. It's driving me mad that these unwanted old photos keep finding their way back to the gallery and cluttering up my phone. I believe there is a setting somewhere which asks whether you want received photos to be automatically saved onto your phone, but I have looked through my phone multiple times and can't find it.

Can anyone tell me why this is happening, and how I can prevent it from happening in future?

Thank you in advance.

Re: How to stop photos sent to me on Facebook from being automatically saved to my phone gallery

Uliwooly — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 15:35:50 GMT

@Claire445

You won't be able to see the pictures someone sent you unless you download the picture, that's how facebook and whatsapp work, you should contact the app developers

with that said, you can hide them

open the album app > long press on the picture > select the pictures you don't want to be displayed > menu > hide

Re: How to stop photos sent to me on Facebook from being automatically saved to my phone gallery

Claire445 — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 15:55:07 GMT

Thank you for the reply. I am not downloading the pictures - not consciously anyway. Like I said, anything sent to me seems to appear automatically in my gallery, and that's what I want to stop. This has not always happened on my phone - only in the last few months. I believe I misguidedly ticked a box for some setting like I described at the end of my first post, but now can't find it again to undo it.

I also could not see the hide option on my phone - when I long click, the only options are throw, delete, add items to play memories, geotag and some stupid slideshow thing.

Anyway, I don't even particularly mind the photos automatically downloading once when I receive them. My main issue is that certain photos I have deleted multiple times from my gallery and not looked at on Facebook since are randomly reappearing in my gallery months later. I feel this is very intrusive of the app - like it has more control of my phone than I do. Not sure if uninstalling and reinstalling the app would help?

Re: How to stop photos sent to me on Facebook from being automatically saved to my phone gallery

Uliwooly — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 16:03:37 GMT

@Claire445

Open whatsapp > menu > settings > chats and calls > media auto download

when you long press a picture > menu ( 3 vertical dots on the top right corner) > hide

Re: How to stop photos sent to me on Facebook from being automatically saved to my phone gallery

Claire445 — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 17:17:13 GMT

Thank you!!!! I think I also just managed to find that setting in my facebook messenger app and disable it. Hopefully this will also stop unwanted old photos reappearing in my gallery - time will tell I suppose. Thanks again

Re: How to stop photos sent to me on Facebook from being automatically saved to my phone gallery

Uliwooly — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 17:20:37 GMT

@Claire445

Anytime