The key advantage of messengers, oddly enough, is not only that they allow us to send and receive messages in real-time and for free, but also the ability to share media files. Where once you had to use either a file-sharing service or email to send a photo or video, now you can do it directly in a chat room. But here’s the problem – WhatsApp compresses files too much, and the output is completely unusable photos and videos. Therefore, we have this guide to share a small trick to WhatsApp photos and videos without losing the quality and using any other application.
There are actually two reasons why WhatsApp reduces the quality of photos and videos. The first is to save space on the messenger’s servers, which transmit terabytes of data every day, and it needs to keep the amount of data as small as possible because it can’t be deleted.
How to send photos and videos to WhatsApp as a file, so quality remains intact
The second reason is to increase the speed of sending files. After all, the smaller the weight of a photo or video, the faster it is sent to the other party, and the user gets the impression that WhatsApp is fast, which only plays into the developers’ hands.
However, you can send photos and videos to WhatsApp in their original quality without loss. It’s enough to send them as files. But while Telegram has a dedicated button for this purpose, WhatsApp works a little differently.
- Switch to a chat with the desired conversation partner on WhatsApp;
- Click on the staple button and select “Document“;
- In the window that opens, select the photo or video to send;
- Confirm sending the photo or video in its original quality.
There are limitations, though, too. If you find that you can’t send a file via WhatsApp, it’s advisable to pay attention to its volume. The messenger allows you to send photos and videos with a total weight of no more than 100MB at a time. In other words, if your file weighs more, it simply won’t be sent, unlike Telegram, which has no such restrictions.
Tariff consumption in WhatsApp
Sending photos or videos via WhatsApp as a file is quite compromising. While it allows you to send the file in its original quality, this method has at least four drawbacks:
- There is an increase in mobile tariff consumption for you and the recipient;
- The picture or video you send as a file does not have a thumbnail;
- You can only view the snapshot or video sent by file in “Documents” without a preview (you need to remember the name);
- WhatsApp takes up a lot of space (a large amount of data increases the cache and the messenger begins to take up more space).
But you do get to send media via WhatsApp in the quality in which it is stored on the device. Just compare how the weight of the same video clip sent in the normal way and file changes. In the first case, its weight is almost 2 megabytes, while in the second it is almost 22. The difference is 11 times.
Given the disadvantages described above, I’d say that sending photos and videos via WhatsApp as files is a challenge. It entails too many restrictions. That’s why I’d go for Telegram. You don’t even have to register there, because you can use its cloud-based service.
