New Delhi. WhatsApp has started ending support for unlimited chat backup on Google Drive for users who have signed up for the beta update of the messaging app. This information has been received from a report. The platform will no longer provide free cloud storage to users of Android smartphones. At present, this will affect only beta testers. However, Google Drive’s free storage may be discontinued for all users of Android smartphones in the coming weeks or months.
According to the report of MySmartPrice, WhatsApp has started dropping support of unlimited chat backups on Google Drive for Android beta testers. The app will showcase a banner in Chats > Chat backup in the app’s settings informing users that the changes will take effect within 30 days. These changes can be released to testers in different batches.
In November last year, WhatsApp and Google had announced that the companies were going to stop unlimited chat backup of Google Drive for Android users. According to the timeline released last time, this change was to be released for beta testers in December and for all other users in the first half of 2024.
Beta testers for whom the new changes will be rolled out will see a banner informing them that they have one month before chat backups count towards their Google Drive storage quota. This updated storage policy comes 5 years after WhatsApp and Google started unlimited chat backup. Currently, Google Drive provides unlimited storage for WhatsApp chat backup. That means it is not counted in the 15GB storage available for all accounts. However, this storage is more than the 5GB free cloud storage provided by Apple and Microsoft.
What will happen with this new change?
With this new change, WhatsApp data storage will be counted towards the 15GB storage limit of Google Drive. If this storage is not free then users will have to sign up for Google One subscription. The starting price of its monthly subscription is Rs 130.