Temporary photos, those you can only view once, are very useful when we want to make sure the other person will not be able to reopen that content. In WhatsApp, however, a method has been discovered that allows you to view a View Once photo again, breaking the rule established by the feature itself that prevents recovering that snapshot.
That said, you will not be able to save it to the gallery or take a screenshot, but you will be able to view it again within the WhatsApp app itself.
Recover and view a WhatsApp View Once photo again
Now then, if you want to view that WhatsApp photo that has already disappeared, with this recent trick you can have a second chance (or third, or fourth…) to take another look. Follow these steps that we have illustrated from an iPhone, but which should also work on Android.
- Download the photo, if it doesn’t download automatically (and open it optionally).
- Then, go to WhatsApp Settings.
- Inside Settings, scroll to Storage and data.
- Once there, look for Storage management and tap to enter.
- If you scroll down, you’ll see a list of contacts with whom you’ve shared files (photos, videos, etc.). Find the contact who just sent you that view-once WhatsApp photo (if your list is very long, note the magnifying glass icon to enter the name and locate them more quickly).
- Once you tap the contact’s name, press the lower two-arrow icon to sort the content by Most recent, so the first photo that appears will be the one they just sent.
- Tap the first photo, which will have no preview image (usually shown as a question mark), and the view-once photo they just sent will open.
In this way, if you had already opened the photo in the WhatsApp chat, you can return to this section where the image is still available.
It will be marked as “opened” and you still won’t be able to save it or take a screenshot
And beware, because if you hadn’t opened the photo, but you open it from here, it will still be marked as opened in the WhatsApp chat, so this trick will not allow you to view the image without leaving a trace.
Similarly, from this setting you also won’t be able to download that photo or take a screenshot, since it retains the properties that block that within the app. However, as we said, you will have it there to view again using this convoluted method. We don’t know for how long, but we have tested it and even if we leave the app or remove it from multitasking, the image remains available.
It is likely that, sooner rather than later, WhatsApp will fix this “bug” in subsequent updates of the application or at least change the way single-view photos are stored on our phones so that we cannot use this method; after all, that’s the point of this feature.
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