WhatsApp chat history backup on Android phone will soon be counted as part of Google's cloud storage limit. This was announced by Google in a blog post on Monday. The company said that Android users may need to reduce file sizes or purchase extra storage if the backup exceeds the 15GB limit offered by Google to all users. The policy change is being brought in after five years. This is a departure from the previous arrangement, where Android users enjoyed unlimited storage for backups.
The blog post further said that the change will first start rolling out to WhatsApp Beta users from December, and then gradually to all WhatsApp users on Android starting early next year.
"If you choose to enable WhatsApp backups on Android, personal Google Accounts come with 15GB of storage at no charge-3X more than most mobile platforms-that's shared across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos," the blog post said.
"WhatsApp backups on Android will continue to work, as long as you have available space within your Google Account storage. If you hit your storage limit, you'll need to free up space to resume backups by removing items you do not need," it added.
Google said that for users with a personal Google account, the company's storage management tools can help them do things like remove large files or photos. "You can also delete items directly from WhatsApp. Deleting items from WhatsApp deletes them from your cloud storage, reducing the storage used by your next WhatsApp backup. You also have the option to get more storage with Google One."
Meta-owned WhatsApp repeated the update in a separate post and said that users would see a warning 30 days before the change is made.
