# How did my smartphone do this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2021, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416 "2021-05-19T03:18:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416/1 "2021-05-19T03:18:08Z")
I was using Facebook Messenger and sent my friend a few photos from my Android smartphone. After sending it to her, I then went into my smartphone gallery and did some cropping and editing of the photos (for my own sake, not related to the chat at all). When I returned to our Facebook text chat, I found that…the photos I had _previously_ sent her, moments ago, had also been cropped and edited accordingly. How is that possible? ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416/2 "2021-05-19T03:21:53Z")
Depends. In many cases you can be sending an image as a link to your google photos. So it would be liked sending a link to a straight dope message, which you then edited. The link points to the url, and if the url has been edited, that’s what they’re going to see. Of course, also like the dope, if they saw it immediately, they may look back later and say, ‘huh, did it look like that before?’ ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416/3 "2021-05-19T03:54:40Z")
My guess is that Messenger is storing a link to the photo. If you overwrote the original instead of a “save as” then Messenger is now displaying the updated photo _on your phone._ But I’d be willing to bet that what was actually sent to your friend is a copy of the original. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416/4 "2021-05-19T13:07:10Z")
This is a guess, but maybe the Messenger programmers had the sense to realize it would be a waste of space to store a separate copy on your phone of pictures you are sending out. I think that’s what @Shoeless meant to describe too. Your phone sends a copy to your friend, but what you see is the photo stored on your phone. When you changed that it changed in your view, but not your friend’s. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416/5 "2021-05-19T13:17:02Z")
I understand the reasoning, but sending a hotlinked image without either person realizing it seems like a bad idea. If it sent the person a link that they could click on to see the picture (and download it if they want), that could make sense. But the idea that I can send a picture to your phone, then later change that picture, could have unintended (or intended) consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416/6 "2021-05-19T13:52:27Z")
Doing some experimenting this morning with a photo I took of our living room and sent to my wife in FB Messenger. Trying to edit the original photo in either my Google Photos app or in Messenger itself, I only get an option to save a copy. It doesn’t overwrite the original photo. And the displayed photo in Messenger still shows the original. So, I still think Messenger is linking to the original photo for the display, but I don’t seem to be able to reproduce what **Velocity** did to see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2021, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-my-smartphone-do-this/942416/7 "2021-05-19T15:13:30Z")
Depending on how I edit photos on my Android phone it may overwrite the photo in the gallery, or store a new copy. Facebook Messenger sometimes queues things to send, or takes its own sweet time sending if I’m not on wifi. You may have edited the photo, and only after that did FB Messenger decide to send off the only copy it now had.