Google will offer a limited plan for WhatsApp backups
If you use WhatsApp on Android, you already know that your backups don't count against your Google Drive storage quota after an agreement between WhatsApp and Google some years ago. This is a very good advantage for Android users since Apple doesn't offer an unlimited plan to store backups on iCloud, but something is going to change in the future.
| Common questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Story about? | Limited Plan - Google Drive |
| Status? | Under development |
| Availability? | Google will stop offering the unlimited plan at a later date. |
| I've installed the most recent update but I don't understand if I still have the unlimited plan. | You can still back up your messages and media on Google Drive without any limit because your backups still doesn't count against your Google Drive storage quota. |
| Previous news? | WhatsApp beta for Android 2.22.4.8: what’s new? |
LIMITED PLAN
3 months ago, we spotted a new feature under development that allows managing your WhatsApp chats when backing up on Google Drive: the user could be able to exclude certain message types from the backup, in order to save space on Google Drive.
We have immediately realized there was something weird: WhatsApp backups no longer count against our Google Drive storage quota, so why WhatsApp was planning to release a similar feature? The answer is simple: Google is planning to stop offering the unlimited plan to store our WhatsApp backups. We have initially preferred to mark the news as a rumor since we wanted to show you some real evidence about our conclusion, and the day has come:
As you can see in this screenshot, we have shown some important strings that explain what's changing in a future update. In particular, they are planning to introduce changes for backups ("Google Drive backup changing"), notifications about when Google Drive is almost full, when the limit is reached and information about when the changes take effect ("%1$s limit starts on %2$s."). This is not so surprising: Google stopped offering unlimited storage for Google Photos the last year.
According to these strings, Google will still offer a certain quota to store WhatsApp backups for free, but it will be a limited plan, and information about the new storage plan is unknown right now.
When there is more information about the new plan, there will be another post on this website.
Follow WABetaInfo on Twitter to always be up to date about WhatsApp news, and you can discover all other changes implemented on WhatsApp beta for Android, iOS, Web/Desktop, Windows!
Let us know on Twitter if you like this article and you can visit this page to discover where you can find WABetaInfo!
WABetaInfo has a Discord Server about WhatsApp, where you can chat, give advice, ask for help, and read my announcements!