WhatsApp will no longer give you unlimited chat backups on Android, ending almost half a decade of free run for users. The change which came into effect late last year beginning with beta testers will start to apply for everyone this year. WhatsApp in fact seems on course to roll it out globally within the first half of 2024.
Free unlimited backups for WhatsApp users on Android were part of an agreement that the Meta-owned instant messaging app had made with Google back in 2018. Think of it as WhatsApp paying for your backups and so, backups that you made did not count towards your Google Drive storage (on Android, Drive is the default source of all backups) and by extension, did not exhaust it as you continued to save more and more data.
All this is ending now which is to say that your backups will start to consume your “actual” space on Google Drive and you’ll have to either pay for it once you hit the cap (this is 15GB) or delete stuff as you move along. Of course, the new ruling applies to Android users only. iPhone users never really got such a subsidy (also Apple only provides 5GB of iCloud for free before charging you money for more space) and so, users there can continue to live their lives much in the same way as before.
If you’re wondering, if WhatsApp and Google will stop your backups suddenly one day, rest assured that won’t be the case. WhatsApp says it will notify users 30 days in advance before taking your free Google Drive chat backups away so you’ll have ample time to make necessary changes.
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