On a recent London workshop we had a WhatsApp group for everyone in the group. We used this to keep contact with each other and to shren images.
This group worked perfectly during the two days of the workshop. Then we used the group to share images from the two days so that we could look at each other’s images.
It was a surprise when I received a warning for my network provider that I was about to use up my monthly allocation of data. A little background, I use my phone for Google Maps, news apps, posting to social media as well as WhatsApp for voice and video connections. all of this when I am travelling or on a workshop.
I did a little investigation and discovered that the issue was the very ‘large’ images that my workshop colleagues were sharing. My workflow was to only share images that I had loaded onto my desktop and processed in Lightroom before saving to a size suitable for websites or salons.
My colleagues were sharing images loaded directly from the cameras and they were very large! Plus, we had had 5 models plus passersby for our street portraits so we were all sharing lots of images.
The solution
The very simple solution was to open “Settings” on the app, select “Storage and data” and change the default settings for “media auto-download” to “Wi-fi only”. Now large images (anything else sent to me) will only download with a Wi-fi connection.
I can always revert if needed when travelling.