Meta, which owns WhatsApp, has issued a statement about the ongoing glitch, which will duplicate any pictures saved to iPhone owners' camera roll
iOS users have complained about duplicate media eating into their storage
WhatsApp is malfunctioning on iPhones worldwide, saving duplicate photographs in the camera roll. If you’re running low on built-in storage, these duplicated images could push you over the limit — leaving your iPhone unable to take new photos or download apps.
If you receive a lot of photos, these unwanted duplicates could wreak havoc with your iCloud back-up too.
The glitch impacts those who have set-up WhatsApp to automatically save incoming photos to their iPhone camera roll. But instead of a single version of the photo appearing in their library, many iPhone owners are now seeing double.
Some WhatsApp users blamed the latest iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 17.4, which was rolled out worldwide on March 5 and introduced some seismic changes.
However, as infuriated iOS users flooded social media to complain about the bug in WhatsApp, it become apparent that many who were suffering with the glitch hadn't updated to iOS 17.4 yet.
The same thing happens to me, I thought I was the only one. I have the option NOT to download, except with my wife's chat in which each photo is saved twice @Daniel_Rubino @tomwarren
— SuNcO (@sunco) March 9, 2024
Do @Apple and @WhatsApp know that there is an issue with photos getting downloaded twice going on in IOS devices?
— Pawan Kumar Singh (@sunkripawan) March 15, 2024
Yo why TF is this phone saving WhatsApp photos twice???? 🤬
— Mma B 🥹 (@LadyRasta_) March 13, 2024
Is there a problem with WhatsApp, I’m receiving the photos twice from all people!?? @WhatsApp
— Julie Shahin (@Bitonya) March 15, 2024
iPhone users branded the glitch “annoying” and “irritating” across support forums and social media platforms.
“Is there a problem with WhatsApp, I’m receiving the photos twice from all people!??” one user posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Sharing their woes on an Apple community support forum, one iPhone user posted: "On my iPhone my WhatsApp is set to automatically save the photos I receive on Photos. For me this was working just fine, but a couple of days ago Photos started to save each photo twice. This means that now, if I receive one photo via WhatsApp and then I go to Photos, the same pic appears duplicated."
The bug appears to be exclusive to iPhone, with no Android users reporting the same glitch.
Meta, the parent company that owns WhatsApp, Facebook, and Oculus, has acknowledged the issue and raced out an update to address the duplicate photo glitch.
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In a statement shared with The Sun, a spokesperson for Meta said: "We're aware that a small number of iPhone users are having issues when receiving media whereby it's saving twice to their camera roll. We're rolling out a fix to users, and recommend all those affected to download the latest version of the app."
To check whether you’re running the latest version of WhatsApp on your iPhone, load-up the App Store and tap on the circular account photo in the top right-hand corner. This will show options for purchases, ongoing subscriptions, and notifications.
Scroll down and you’ll see a list of queued software updates. If there’s an update to WhatsApp that hasn’t been installed yet, it will be waiting in this list. Pull down from the top to refresh the list.
Scroll down to the list of apps and tap Update All.
The latest update to WhatsApp was shared three days ago, Version 24.5.75, which was pushed out to patch another bug with photos in the messaging app, “Fixed a bug when copying and pasting images,” the notes published alongside the update read.
While waiting for the latest bug-quashing update to land in the App Store, you can disable the auto-save feature on iPhone to fix the problem. Open WhatsApp, then click on Settings > Chats, then switch-off the toggle next to the setting marked Save To Camera Roll.
WhatsApp is the most popular messaging service on the planet, with more than 2 billion monthly active users globally. It’s owned by Meta, which is run by billionaire Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
