As of now, Android users of WhatsApp enjoy unlimited space for chat backup on Google Drive. But that could change soon, as Google reportedly plans to limit the storage it provides for chats back on Google Drive.
WhatsApp chats for iOS users are backed up on iCloud with a limited 5GB of free storage. On the other hand, Google Drive, which stores backups of WhatsApp Android app users’ chats, has so far provided users with unlimited storage space. This means their WhatsApp chat backups don’t count towards their free Google Drive storage, which is 15GB for all Google account holders.
Now, WABetaInfo reports that Google Drive may limit the free storage it offers Android users to store backups of WhatsApp chats. The blog site found strings in WhatsApp’s code suggesting “Google Drive backups are changing.” Screenshots shared by the blog site also show that WhatsApp warns users when their chat backup space is full or close to the limit.
There’s no word on the total amount of storage Google will provide WhatsApp users with chat backups. Details about the implementation timeline for this change are also still unknown at this time.
That said, it’s no surprise that Google plans to limit the unlimited storage it offers for WhatsApp chat backups on Google Drive. Last year, the company made similar changes to Google Photos.
Also, this change explains another feature that WhatsApp is working on. Last October, the blog site reported that the Meta-owned messaging app planned to give its users a new set of controls to manage their chat backups. New settings include separate toggle buttons for audio messages, video files, images and other files. Given recent developments, these controls will help WhatsApp Android users manage their chat backups more efficiently.
Complete News Source : BGR
