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Last update: January 29, 2024, 08:00 IST
WhatsApp chats and other data are now counted as part of your cloud storage
WhatsApp data backed up in the cloud will count in your Google Drive account and some users are already seeing the changes.
WhatsApp users will finally put an end to their free storage backups on the messaging app. In fact, if you have been using the beta version of WhatsApp you will notice that the changes have already come into effect. The latest update means that all WhatsApp users will soon have to manage their WhatsApp backup data or be willing to pay for Google Drive storage.
Earlier this year, we told you that WhatsApp was informing users about storage changes coming to everyone, and now we’re seeing backed up storage count toward your Google account.
WhatsApp backups to Google Drive storage: how it works
WhatsApp users can go to their account settings and chat backups, where they can see the MB or GB of WhatsApp data backed up to their cloud account. Just above it you will see this message: “Back up your chats and media to your Google Account storage. You can restore them to a new phone after downloading WhatsApp on it.” WhatsApp Android 2.24.3.21 beta shows these new changes for backup storage.
You can even go to the managed storage section of the Google Drive app to see what data is taking up space in your cloud storage. There you will notice that Gmail, Google Photos and Drive are mentioned with the amount of space they have taken up in the cloud, but you will also see “other” written and that is where your WhatsApp data is backed up.
As we said before, WhatsApp or Google have not given a reason for these changes, but the latter likely now feels that with the number of people using WhatsApp, free cloud storage is not feasible.
However, it’s important to note that users can continue to back up their data without additional charges, as long as they have available storage within the 15GB of free cloud storage included with their Google account or any additional storage. purchased, such as through Google One.
Google has been pushing other users to sign up for its paid services, allowing them 100GB of cloud storage and other benefits. It has plans up to 2TB, but is typically preferred by people who make extensive use of cloud storage. Will the new changes force people to buy cloud storage or will they prefer to delete data from their account? We’ll find out once the public version is released in the coming weeks.
