Downloading Audio Files from whatsapp (mac)

You can choose "copy" and then paste it somewhere using Finder. It's ridiculous. It's just software being made progressively worse and less usable...like Adobe products.

I have had this same issue... what a pain without this download button anymore. But yes can just forward it on a mail to yourself. Or what I have found is quicker is to copy that audio file message and then paste it in a folder of your choice... copy it and paste it

As far as I know, the easiest way to do this now (well, actually the only one I know!) is to select the audio message as if to forward it, and then, from the options "forward", "copy" and "share" that will show on the bottom bar, choose "share" as Mail. This will create a new mail message with the audio file embedded, and that will allow you to drag the file and copy it anywhere.

Hope that helps!

Can't seem to figure out how to do that; I wish I could. The "copy" option is greyed out on a right click; I'm not sure how to copy it ... would love some elaboration on this.

EDIT: Oh, I figured it out. It's from the "forward" menu, first have to click to "forward", then you can select and copy. That's easier ... still, why not a "save as" option to make it straightforward?

UPDATE: also see about "Copy" option in above answers, you can click the menu to "forward", then from that selection menu at the bottom, is a "copy" option, from which you can paste into Finder. That's even handier, but a "Save As" option would still be nice.

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So what I found is that you can click on the person's name/picture at the top of a conversation, and in the menu that comes up, there's a "Save to Downloads" option which is supposed to save attachments from that conversation to the downloads folder ... trying that. But, doesn't seem to have an effect on files already received. (You can set this per-conversation, and you can also set the default in Settings > Chats > Save to Downloads)

One way I found to get to those is to look in the folder

/Users/your_username/Library/Group Containers/group.net.whatsapp.WhatsApp.shared/Message/Media

("Library" folder is hidden, so you may have to press Cmd+Shift+. (period) to get it to show in Finder)

and then in there you will have a subfolder for each conversation, named by phone number. So you have to look up the phone number to find the right one.

And then under that you have to look in a somewhat arcane file structure but eventually you find the files, also with cryptic names.

Such a pain but it works. Makes you wonder why they took away the "simple" option.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with Apple, since they don't make WhatsApp ... I agree it's super frustrating that WhatsApp seems to have taken it away, not only on Mac, but also Windows ... :( I have no idea why.

From your iPhone's WhatsApp - airdrop the file to your mac. It appears that the guy who designed these Apple extensions only uses Telegram.

helped me, better than try to find in the os cache system!

I use both WhatsApp ( desktop for the business and the for Mac to my personal ) and this trick is better than forward to another program