WhatsApp started 2024 with a bold move that might annoy a lot of Android users. Moving forward, WhatsApp backups will be stored in your Google Drive storage, so you’ll need to make sure your Google Drive has enough space.
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Google Drive storage for WhatsApp backups has been given away free of charge to Android smartphone users by WhatsApp for a while now. But it appears that this freebie is about to expire. This is especially troubling for those who have substantial WhatsApp backups. Find out more about this noteworthy modification.
Google Drive now keeps your media and WhatsApp conversations.
Users were notified by Meta Platforms in November of last year that free Google storage for WhatsApp backups would no longer be available. The company announced in a blog post that, like backups on other mobile platforms, WhatsApp backups on Android will soon be counted towards the user’s cloud storage limit on their Google Account.
As previously reported by Meta, the much-anticipated adjustment is now effective. It looks like the time has come to say goodbye to your free Google Drive storage, even if it was supposed to start in December with a wider deployment anticipated in early 2024.
How does this impact the user experience?
Updating WhatsApp backups will now use up some of the 15GB of storage space that Google offers for free accounts. You need to subscribe to Google One, a service that offers up to 2TB of storage, in order to get more storage. It should be noted that this change only affects Android users because WhatsApp does not provide any free storage space for iOS smartphones.
Check the “Other” category in the Google account storage if you are using the stable version of WhatsApp. You can find the amount of storage that the WhatsApp backup is using there. Notably, WhatsApp will provide users with at least 30 days’ notice of this change via a banner. Open WhatsApp, select Chats, then click on Chat Backups to see the banner.