WhatsApp backups are a great way to ensure your precious media and chats are always available. Android users can backup all their data, including photos and media, to their Google Drive without worrying about storage limits.
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However, this will soon change as both companies have announced that backups will count against the storage quota in Google Drive. Each Google account comes with a 15GB free storage limit, which could affect your future backup plans.
WhatsApp Backups Will Soon Consume Space In Your Google Account
According to the blog post by Google, all your future WhatsApp backups will soon start counting towards your Google account storage limit. This means that your chat and media backup will consume space from your free 15GB storage limit.
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This change will affect WhatsApp beta users starting December 2023 and will slowly roll out to all Android users from the first half of 2024. Furthermore, the company plans to display a banner 30 days before this WhatsApp backup change happens to inform users. You can check this banner in Settings->Chats->Chats Backup.
According to Google, users with a Google Workspace subscription via work or school will not be affected by this change currently. Only those with a personal Google account are likely to face the brunt.
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WhatsApp on other platforms, such as iOS, already counts media backup against your iCloud storage quota. Each iOS user gets 5GB of free storage with the option to purchase additional storage. With this move, Google plans to streamline the WhatsApp experience across all platforms.
Google Offering Discounts On Google One Storage Plans
Each Google account has 15GB of free storage shared across Google Drive, Photos and Gmail. Users can purchase additional storage with a Google One subscription starting at Rs.130 per month or Rs.1,300 per year.
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Getting additional storage will help you back up your WhatsApp data without any worries. The cheapest Basic tier offers 100 GB of storage, while the standard tier comes with 200 GB.
There is also a premium tier that packs 2TB of storage. Google is currently offering these plans for as low as Rs.35 per month for the first three months for a limited period.
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You can also choose to delete your old photos and media from your Google account to accommodate your backup. Apart from this, you can also delete files from WhatsApp to reduce the size of its backup and make it consume less space on your Google Drive.
If you don’t wish to backup your data to your Google account, all your photos and media will be stored locally. You can still transfer them between Android devices using WhatsApp’s new Chat Transfer feature.
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