There are many times that you see status updates of your friends, be it pictures, short video clips, audio recordings masked as videos or videos split in chunks, and you wish to have that media in your gallery to upload as well but you could not, just because you are using the official WhatsApp.
Unlike you, some people have resorted to using a cracked version of WhatsApp such as GB WhatsApp, WhatsApp ++, etc. However, since WhatsApp has started banning those that are using the modified WhatsApp app, you may want to ask if it is ever possible to save WhatsApp status on the official WhatsApp.
Well, as at this time, we never can tell when WhatsApp will roll out the official feature to download WhatsApp status. This feature has leaves people like yourself wondering why the official WhatsApp does not have such a feature.
I do not have an answer as to why that is not allowed, but, I can show you how to save WhatsApp status such as videos, images, GIF, etc you so badly want without having to ask the uploader for it.
Note: The new WhatsApp does not allow users to download or save profile pictures. Our next post will consider how to save WhatsApp profiles to your phone gallery.
This article basically shows you how you can go about getting media such as WhatsApp video status from your contacts’ statuses for your own use.
You only need the official WhatsApp application (Android) and ES File Explorer (Android) to get this done. This may seem stressful at first, but, with time, you will find it pretty easy. Let us dive right in.
Download the ES File Explorer application (in case you do not have it already – I assume you have WhatsApp at least) by following this link: https://es-file-explorer.en.uptodown.com/android/download.
Setting up your Android Phone
After you must have downloaded the application, you need to enable it to display hidden files and directories (this is because the location of the status media is hidden).
Click on the menu icon on the top left part of the app and this will display the menu options, tap on “Settings” from this menu:
You will see a number of options after tapping on this menu option from which you will tap on “Display Settings”:
Tapping on that will take you to another screen with the display settings, from the available settings there, tap on “Show hidden files”:
Flipping this switch on will allow you to see every hidden file and directory on your device.
After flipping the switch on, tap back on your screen till you get back to the home screen.
Getting your WhatsApp video status
Locating the directory containing the statuses of your contacts is not so difficult. The directory (also called folder) is named: .Statuses and it is located in the WhatsApp’s Media directory. Follow the steps below to locate the directory.
First, tap on Internal Storage from the main screen, this will display the directories inside your device (including the hidden ones we just set to display). Find the WhatsApp directory from the long list and tap on it to show its contents:
The WhatsApp directory contains some other directories, from these ones, tap on Media:
From the list of directories you see from the next screen, you should see our target directory (.Statuses). Tap on this directory and you’ll see several files (images and videos) there.
You may be wondering how these files got there. Simple. For every status of your contacts that you view, once you’re able to view that status, you have actually downloaded the media, and, the directory the media is stored in the “.Statuses” directory. Quite intelligent, right?
Here is what the directory looks like when you view it:
Each file stored here is assigned a unique random name. Quite intuitive.
Now, scroll through the files here and locate the file you want to copy. When you do locate the file, tap and hold on it for about a second, this will mark the file, you can add other files if you like (as many as you want).
When you are done selecting the files to copy, tap on Copy as seen in the screenshot below:
After copying the files, you can tap on the back icon of your device, navigate to the folder/directory you will like to put the copied files, in my case, I am using the Xender directory. When inside the directory, tap on Paste and see the files appear in the directory
After seeing the copied files (image(s) and/or video(s)), you can then place it on your WhatsApp status. If you like, you can change back the settings in your ES File Explorer to not show hidden files.
CONCLUSION
You have learned how to copy media uploaded by your contacts to your own device even without using the cracked WhatsApp alternatives out there.
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