Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp will soon start counting chat backups of Android users towards their Google Account cloud storage. This means that the users will have to buy Google Drive storage if they go over the storage limit.
WhatsApp updated its terms and conditions for Android devices last month, a report in The Indian Express said.
According to WhatsApp, this change has started rolling out to Beta users and will slowly roll out to all WhatsApp Android users across the first half of 2024.
"We'll let you know 30 days before this change happens with a banner in WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat backup," the company said.
Google also made the announcement in November through a blog post.
"As an important heads up, WhatsApp backups on Android will soon start counting toward your Google Account cloud storage limit, similar to how WhatsApp backups are handled on other mobile platforms," Google said.
"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. WhatsApp backups on Android will continue to work, as long as you have available space within your Google Account storage," the tech giant said.
If a user hits the storage limit, then they will need to free up space to resume backups by removing items they do not need.
How To Manage WhatsApp Storage?
Here are few tips shared by Google for Whatsapp users on Android:
If you have a personal Google Account, our storage management tools can help you do things like removing large files or photos.
You can also delete items directly from WhatsApp. Deleting items from WhatsApp deletes them from your cloud storage, reducing storage used by your next WhatsApp backup.
You also have the option to get more storage with Google One.
Going forward, WhatsApp backup experience on Android will be in line with how it works on other platforms, with the added benefit of Google's 15 GB of storage available at no charge, the company said.
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