From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

PSA: How I moved all my Whatsapp images/videos of the grandchildren
from internal 64GB storage to the much larger external sd card.

BACKGROUND:
I use whatsapp only for the grandchildren's parents because of
media compression issues when using normal SMS/SMS on Android.

But, my 64GB storage (with a thousand apps installed on it)
was getting tight, so I moved WhatsApp stuff over to the
much larger external sd card.

I did it using a few basic commands from Windows over Wi-Fi.

First check that the path is correct:
adb shell ls /sdcard/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media/
WallPaper
WhatsApp AI Media
WhatsApp Animated Gifs
WhatsApp Audio
WhatsApp Backup Excluded Stickers
WhatsApp Bug Report Attachments
WhatsApp Documents
WhatsApp Images
WhatsApp Profile Photos
WhatsApp Sticker Packs
WhatsApp Stickers
WhatsApp Video
WhatsApp Video Notes
WhatsApp Voice Notes

Then make a folder on the external sdcard for the backup.
adb shell mkdir -p /storage/0CA4-352D/0001/bck/whatsapp

Back it up!
adb shell mv "/sdcard/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media/"* "/storage/0CA4-352D/0001/bck/whatsapp/"






















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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

On 2026-06-01 05:11, Maria Sophia wrote:

PSA: How I moved all my Whatsapp images/videos of the grandchildren
from internal 64GB storage to the much larger external sd card.

BACKGROUND:
I use whatsapp only for the grandchildren's parents because of
media compression issues when using normal SMS/SMS on Android.

But, my 64GB storage (with a thousand apps installed on it)
was getting tight, so I moved WhatsApp stuff over to the
much larger external sd card.

I did it using a few basic commands from Windows over Wi-Fi.

First check that the path is correct:
adb shell ls /sdcard/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media/
WallPaper
WhatsApp AI Media
WhatsApp Animated Gifs
WhatsApp Audio
WhatsApp Backup Excluded Stickers
WhatsApp Bug Report Attachments
WhatsApp Documents
WhatsApp Images
WhatsApp Profile Photos
WhatsApp Sticker Packs
WhatsApp Stickers
WhatsApp Video
WhatsApp Video Notes
WhatsApp Voice Notes

Then make a folder on the external sdcard for the backup.
adb shell mkdir -p /storage/0CA4-352D/0001/bck/whatsapp

Back it up!
adb shell mv "/sdcard/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media/"* "/storage/0CA4-352D/0001/bck/whatsapp/"

It is a backup, right? You are not making WhatsApp use the external card directly.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺;
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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

Carlos E.R. wrote:

Back it up!
adb shell mv "/sdcard/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media/"* "/storage/0CA4-352D/0001/bck/whatsapp/"

It is a backup, right? You are not making WhatsApp use the external card directly.

Good question...
You know, I just thought of something. Maybe the media is encrypted?

Nope. I just looked at the images of the grandkids. They're not encrypted. Neither are the videos. Huh? Can it be that easy to bypass WA encryption?

Ah. I just looked it up. Only the messages are encrypted. Not the media.
/sdcard/Android/data/com.whatsapp/databases/msgstore.db.crypt14

All I did was clean up the internal storage of Whatsapp media.
WhatsApp will keep saving new media to the internal storage.

The only way around that is to root (which I can't do), or set Android to
"Use SD card as internal storage" (which is a disaster waiting to happen).

Of course, I could set up a MacroDroid or Tasker or LlamaLabs Automate
script to move the WA media files nightly over to the external sd card.

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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

On 2026-06-02 05:54, Maria Sophia wrote:

Carlos E.R. wrote:

Back it up!
adb shell mv "/sdcard/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media/"* "/storage/0CA4-352D/0001/bck/whatsapp/"

It is a backup, right? You are not making WhatsApp use the external card
directly.

Good question...
You know, I just thought of something. Maybe the media is encrypted?

Nope. I just looked at the images of the grandkids. They're not encrypted. Neither are the videos. Huh? Can it be that easy to bypass WA encryption?

Ah. I just looked it up. Only the messages are encrypted. Not the media.
/sdcard/Android/data/com.whatsapp/databases/msgstore.db.crypt14

All I did was clean up the internal storage of Whatsapp media.
WhatsApp will keep saving new media to the internal storage.

The only way around that is to root (which I can't do), or set Android to "Use SD card as internal storage" (which is a disaster waiting to happen).

Of course, I could set up a MacroDroid or Tasker or LlamaLabs Automate
script to move the WA media files nightly over to the external sd card.

If you do that, the threads do not display the photos.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺;
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From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android

Carlos E.R. wrote:

Of course, I could set up a MacroDroid or Tasker or LlamaLabs Automate
script to move the WA media files nightly over to the external sd card.

If you do that, the threads do not display the photos.

Yeah. I noticed that.
Actually, they display a blurred thumbnail with a download icon.

That works for me, but I can see that it might not work for everyone.
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