Does a status saver need the internet?
Saving a status that's already on your phone doesn't need a connection. What does, and what that means for privacy.
Short answer: saving doesn't, watching does.
Watching needs WhatsApp's connection
A status reaches your phone through WhatsApp. If you're offline, WhatsApp can't download new statuses, so there's nothing new to save. That's WhatsApp's connection, not the saver's.
Saving works offline
Once a status is on your phone, copying it is a local file operation. Status Saver reads
WhatsApp's statuses folder and copies the file to Download/MobileByteSensei/WhatsappStatuses — in
airplane mode if you like. Converting a video to MP3 and compressing files also run entirely on the
phone.
Why the app still has internet permission
To be straightforward about it: the free app shows ads and uses Google's crash and usage reporting, which need a connection. Your statuses and files are never uploaded — there's no server that receives them. The privacy policy lists exactly what the ad and analytics services receive.
The Chrome extension
On a computer, the Status Saver extension makes no network requests of its own. It keeps the statuses WhatsApp Web already loaded, in your browser's storage, and our viewer page reads them from there. Nothing travels to us.
Beware "online" savers
A website that offers to fetch WhatsApp statuses for you has to get into your WhatsApp account to do it. That's a much bigger risk than any app — see are status saver apps safe?
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