Chat photos, in the order they arrived
Somebody sends twelve photos of a document over WhatsApp, one page at a time. Saved to a phone or a computer, they become files called IMG-20260412-WA0007.jpg and so on — and a file picker, a gallery or a folder rarely hands them over in that order. This page reads the date and the running number out of each name and puts the pile in the order it was sent, without you dragging anything. If you do drag a page, your order wins and stays.
A worked example: three files dropped as IMG-20260412-WA0003, IMG-20260411-WA0010 and IMG-20260412-WA0001 came out as pages in the order 11 April #10, 12 April #1, 12 April #3 — the order they were sent — in a 3-page PDF of 44,232 bytes, each 1,600-pixel photo flagged as chat-compressed.
What WhatsApp has already done to them
WhatsApp re-compresses photos to save data, and the result is often about 1,600 pixels on its long edge. Across a full A4 page that is roughly 140 dots per inch: readable, but soft in small print. Each such photo carries a note in the strip, and the page it lands on shows its real resolution. Photos sent twice — a common thing in a busy chat — are flagged as “looks like page 3”, and you choose whether to keep both.
Untouched where possible
Because the images are already compressed once, re-compressing them again would cost more detail. A JPEG that needs nothing changed is copied into the PDF as it is. For a document sent as photos, scan picture to PDF squares and whitens each page; to fit an upload limit, see under 200 KB; and combine multiple photos has every other sort order.
Questions about whatsApp images to PDF
How does it know the order they were sent?
WhatsApp names saved images after the day they arrived and a running number — IMG-20260412-WA0007 is the seventh image of 12 April 2026 — and the export names (“WhatsApp Image 2026-04-12 at 09.30.11”) carry the time. The pile is sorted by those, so the pages come out in the order they were sent. Files without such a name keep their place after the rest.
Why does it say a photo may be soft?
WhatsApp compresses photos it sends, usually to about 1,600 pixels on the long edge. That is fine on a phone screen and soft for small print on A4. The builder flags any photo with a WhatsApp-style name at that size. If it matters, ask the sender for the original or for the photo sent as a document.
Are my photos uploaded?
No. The images are read from your phone or computer by this browser and written into the PDF here. Nothing is sent anywhere, which also means nothing is spent from your data plan.
What does the PDF contain?
The images as pages, in the order shown: no file names, no camera or location data, no title unless you type one. A JPEG that needs no change is copied into the PDF byte for byte, so it loses nothing more.
The files end in .jfif. Will they open?
Yes. JFIF is JPEG; every file is recognised by its bytes, not its name.