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On iOS, whatsapp is weirdly pushy about getting unlimited access to your photo album. They also go out of their way to make it hard to save a photo without gra

On iOS, whatsapp is weirdly pushy about getting unlimited access to your photo album. They also go out of their way to make it hard to save a photo without granting full access. Creepy.

vladvasiliu 1y ago
IME giving it "limited access" works well; you can save anything without issue. What pisses me off, though, is that I didn't find a way to give a contact a name without allowing it access to the phone's contacts.
- skylurk 1y ago
  Tested it, and yes, when I increase the access from "Add Photos Only" to "Limited Access" I can add photos again. But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy. And yeah the contacts thing also pisses me off. They know what they are doing.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy. Not really, given whatsapp could be theoretically keeping a local copy and the operating system can't really do anything about it. It would also be a pretty weird case to code. Imagine writing an app where if you tried to save a file, you couldn't immediately access it afterwards.
    - skylurk 1y ago
      > Imagine writing an app where if you tried to save a file, you couldn't immediately access it afterwards. It works fine in other apps such as Signal and even Teams. I don't really want Moxie or MSFT to have persistent access to any part of my personal photo album either, no matter how good they say they'll be.
  - vladvasiliu 1y ago
    > But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy. I think this is good enough. If you consider they do shady stuff with your pictures, you might as well consider that they hold on to anything they get their hands on right away.
    - mckn1ght 1y ago
      I think you meant to say you don’t think this is good enough? And I’d second that.
      - vladvasiliu 1y ago
        No, I do think it's good enough. My idea is that if WhatsApp can't be trusted, once it gets access to any file, it will hold on to it. So revoking access to something it already has won't accomplish all that much, since I've already figured that I can share that file with them.
ozgrakkurt 1y ago
My solution to this is to go Photos -> share photo -> whatsapp Instead of starting from whatsapp
- morsch 1y ago
  I just tried removing the access photos permission entirely from Whatsapp on my Android phone. Then, sharing a photo from within the Photos app pops up the permission dialog in Whatsapp. You need to give it at least the "Limited" permission, otherwise it won't process the shared photo. Having given it that permission, I can share photos from within Whatsapp as well, without going to the Photos app. I'm not sure if the file picker that pops up is a Whatsapp component (meaning the "Limited" permission is essentially unlimited) or if it's a system component. I mean the latter would make sense, but I'm too cynical to believe it works that well.
orthogonal-wren 1y ago
What I do is open the photos app and then either copy & paste into the whatsapp message field or use the sharing dialog to share a photo / video on whatsapp. I guess that would also work for the files app. It’s extra steps but it’s worth it for me.
agile-gift0262 1y ago
On Android WhatsApp also requires access to all media files on the phone in order to use certain features that don't really need them, but that sound plausible. For example, when you receive an audio message, if you want to listen to it, it will request full media access. Android apps can access media files they have created, so this permission isn't needed. But without granting media access (or tricking it into thinking it has it, like with GrapheneOS' storage scopes), WhatsApp won't let you listen to the audio. Same when trying to open an image full screen instead of just the in-chat preview. If this were a small developer, I could assume it was done that way accidentally or to cut some corners. Coming from Meta, I can only assume malice.
- GauntletWizard 1y ago
  A similar anti-pattern - WhatsApp has it's own contact list and list of users. However, you can't use it without granting the Contacts permissions. On my phone, though I have WhatsApp installed, I can't create a new chat - It just brings up the "Enable Contacts" dialogue. I can however use their web-client to initiate a chat, and when people can message me I can respond.
  - agile-gift0262 1y ago
    you can also start a conversation going to the URL wa.me/<phone number> in a browser

On iOS, whatsapp is weirdly pushy about getting unlimited access to your photo album. They also go out of their way to make it hard to save a photo without granting full access. Creepy.

vladvasiliu 1y ago

IME giving it "limited access" works well; you can save anything without issue. What pisses me off, though, is that I didn't find a way to give a contact a name without allowing it access to the phone's contacts.

skylurk 1y ago
Tested it, and yes, when I increase the access from "Add Photos Only" to "Limited Access" I can add photos again. But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy. And yeah the contacts thing also pisses me off. They know what they are doing.
- gruez 1y ago
  >But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy. Not really, given whatsapp could be theoretically keeping a local copy and the operating system can't really do anything about it. It would also be a pretty weird case to code. Imagine writing an app where if you tried to save a file, you couldn't immediately access it afterwards.
  - skylurk 1y ago
    > Imagine writing an app where if you tried to save a file, you couldn't immediately access it afterwards. It works fine in other apps such as Signal and even Teams. I don't really want Moxie or MSFT to have persistent access to any part of my personal photo album either, no matter how good they say they'll be.
- vladvasiliu 1y ago
  > But now Whatsapp retains access to all the photos I added unless I go into settings and revoke access to those photos. Creepy. I think this is good enough. If you consider they do shady stuff with your pictures, you might as well consider that they hold on to anything they get their hands on right away.
  - mckn1ght 1y ago
    I think you meant to say you don’t think this is good enough? And I’d second that.
    - vladvasiliu 1y ago
      No, I do think it's good enough. My idea is that if WhatsApp can't be trusted, once it gets access to any file, it will hold on to it. So revoking access to something it already has won't accomplish all that much, since I've already figured that I can share that file with them.

ozgrakkurt 1y ago

My solution to this is to go Photos -> share photo -> whatsapp Instead of starting from whatsapp

morsch 1y ago
I just tried removing the access photos permission entirely from Whatsapp on my Android phone. Then, sharing a photo from within the Photos app pops up the permission dialog in Whatsapp. You need to give it at least the "Limited" permission, otherwise it won't process the shared photo. Having given it that permission, I can share photos from within Whatsapp as well, without going to the Photos app. I'm not sure if the file picker that pops up is a Whatsapp component (meaning the "Limited" permission is essentially unlimited) or if it's a system component. I mean the latter would make sense, but I'm too cynical to believe it works that well.

orthogonal-wren 1y ago

What I do is open the photos app and then either copy & paste into the whatsapp message field or use the sharing dialog to share a photo / video on whatsapp. I guess that would also work for the files app. It’s extra steps but it’s worth it for me.

agile-gift0262 1y ago

On Android WhatsApp also requires access to all media files on the phone in order to use certain features that don't really need them, but that sound plausible. For example, when you receive an audio message, if you want to listen to it, it will request full media access. Android apps can access media files they have created, so this permission isn't needed. But without granting media access (or tricking it into thinking it has it, like with GrapheneOS' storage scopes), WhatsApp won't let you listen to the audio. Same when trying to open an image full screen instead of just the in-chat preview. If this were a small developer, I could assume it was done that way accidentally or to cut some corners. Coming from Meta, I can only assume malice.

GauntletWizard 1y ago
A similar anti-pattern - WhatsApp has it's own contact list and list of users. However, you can't use it without granting the Contacts permissions. On my phone, though I have WhatsApp installed, I can't create a new chat - It just brings up the "Enable Contacts" dialogue. I can however use their web-client to initiate a chat, and when people can message me I can respond.
- agile-gift0262 1y ago
  you can also start a conversation going to the URL wa.me/<phone number> in a browser