Many users reported that they failed to download WhatsApp media files such as photos or videos, and their iPhone showed that "The Download Was Unable to Complete" .
In this article, we will explain the reasons of WhatsApp not downloading media error and introduce 6 ways to help you solve the WhatsApp download failure problem.
There are many reasons why WhatsApp media not downloading, most of them are caused by software errors or network connections.
If you can't effectively look for the potential reasons, it is recommended that you use different methods to diagnose them one by one.
After testing, we have concluded the solutions below to troubleshoot "WhatsApp unable to complete download" error.
When you encounter the WhatsApp media download problem, you should first check whether your device is connected to the Internet.
If you are using wireless network, it is possible that your Android or iPhone Wi-Fi is not connected, and you are unable to download WhatsApp media files without network connection.
If the device is connected to the Internet, please check the coverage strength. One way to test the signal is to try loading a web page to see if the loading speed has slowed down.
You may fail to download videos or photos from WhatsApp if the date and time on your device are not set correctly.
When the date is incorrect, you may not be able to connect to the WhatsApp server to get messages or download media files.
To adjust the date and time on your phone, follow these steps. (Specific steps may vary between models.)
For Android：「Settings」>「General Management」>「Date and Time」.
For iPhone：「Settings」>「General」>「Date & Time」.
Select the "Automatically Set" option and the mobile service provider will set the phone to the correct time.
Too much WhatsApp cache will also cause the issue of WhatsApp not downloading media files.
Please follow the simple steps below to clear the cache and data of WhatsApp regularly to make WhatsApp work better.
For Android Users:
Go to "Settings" > "Apps" on your Android device.
Find "WhatsApp" and click on "Storage".
Click on "Clear Data" and "Clear Cache".
Then restart your Android phone and run WhatsApp to see if you can download the media file.
For iPhone Users:
Open Settings on iPhone and click on "General" > "iPhone Storage".
You will see detailed information about all your contacts, including photos, videos, documents, stickers, and other data sizes.
Select WhatsApp, and then click "Delete App", the cache and data of iPhone WhatsApp will be deleted.
If you always encounter the WhatsApp images and videos not downloading issue, you can update WhatsApp to the latest version to solve the problem. To do this, you can refer to the following steps.
For Android: Open Google Play Store on your device and search for "WhatsApp". If the update is available, click the "Update" button and get it updated.
For iPhone: Go to the App Store and search for "WhatsApp", then click "Update".
After the update is complete, open WhatsApp again and try to download the media file to see if the WhatsApp downloading failure problem is resolved.
WhatsApp will not be able to download media files if there is not enough storage space on the phone's SD card or the internal storage is not enough.
You need to check the storage where WhatsApp is located on your iPhone or Android phone, and if necessary, delete some data on your device to free up more space.
If there is enough space on the SD card and you still cannot download files from WhatsApp, you can delete all WhatsApp data from the SD card and try again.
If your Android phone has never been able to download media on WhatsApp, it's most likely that your SD card is set to read-only mode.
You can save photos or videos to an SD card to check if turned on the Read-Only Mode. If the media files can be saved, then it means the SD card is in read-only mode.
If the media files are still not downloading on WhatsApp even if you can save them to the SD card, you may need to delete the WhatsApp data from the SD card to clear all WhatsApp conversations and downloaded files.
Step 1. Before deleting the WhatsApp data, you need to backup them by simply copying the WhatsApp folders saved on SD card to your computer.
Step 2. Delete the WhatsApp folder and all the WhatsApp media will be deleted.
Step 3: Restart your iPhone to check if the media files can be saved successfully.
To create the full backup of WhatsApp media files and documents, LazePaw for WhatsApp is highly recommended. LazePaw for WhatsApp can back up WhatsApp to your computer, allowing you to view, transfer or export them at any time.
When you encounter the annoying problem of WhatsApp not downloading media files, try the methods in this article. Hope that this post will help you to successfully download the desired WhatsApp photos, videos, various files, etc.!
Highly interested in technology and mobile products, FoneGeek team devote to writing technical articles and sharing useful solutions to fix issues on iPhone/iPad and Android devices.
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