I've googled it but whatsapp gives instructions that's actually not possible. Anybody know how to do this? It's eating up my data.

WhatsApp messages barely take up any data, I've got 7410 messages sent/received total and that's used 5.9MB. I guess if you have a 100mb data limit and send/receive 10,000 messages a day it might be an issue.

WhatsApp does have the option of making it so you won't auto download Pictures/Videos over your data connection so you should make sure that's enabled in it's settings.

Are you sure WhatsApp is the cause of your data being eaten up?

I think so because the group I'm in sends messages all the time and when I check my data allowance after having received them it drops quite a bit.

Is there a way to stop it from downloading messages automatically as well when not connected to WiFi?

Check in WhatsApp settings, it shows you how much data its using. Messages don't take much data at all.

On an iPhone, go Settings, then Mobile Data. Scroll to WhatsApp and toggle the switch to off.

I imagine Android must have a similar system-level way of doing it?

However, as said above, WhatsApp really shouldn't use a lot of data!

On Android I believe there is a setting to "restrict background data" which should prevent any messages being downloaded until you open the app yourself.

I think it's because the group I'm in are sending literally all the time, that or there's something running in the background I'm not catching.

I should have probably mentioned that I have a samsung s6.

Thanks. Did this. Hopefully things should improve.