Presently, one can use an unlimited amount of Google Drive’s cloud storage for backing up WhatsApp chats and media. Google and WhatsApp have an agreement, so WhatsApp backups don’t eat into the 15GB free cloud storage Drive offers. Meanwhile, iCloud offers Apple devices a limited amount of free storage. Rumor has it that Google could soon follow in Apple’s footsteps and make unlimited Drive backups a thing of the past.
According to WhatsApp beta feature tracking website WABetaInfo, an in-development feature spotted three months ago suggested Drive could discontinue unlimited free backups. It allowed you to exclude specific messages from the cloud backups to save space on Drive.
Strings of code that suggest WhatsApp could soon limit free Google Drive backups
The report claims that Google plans to stop offering the unlimited plan to store WhatsApp backups. In some strings of code, WABetaInfo spotted “Google Drive backup changing” notifications that would appear when the storage is almost full. It speculates Google would continue to allow free Drive backups, but they won’t be unlimited anymore. Users would have a storage space constraint. For now, additional details about this limited free Drive storage for WhatsApp backups remain unknown.
It will not be surprising if WhatsApp revokes access to unlimited free Google Drive storage. Google recently stopped allowing unlimited free Google Photos backups as well to promote Google One memberships that provide more cloud storage. Do you think Google will promote paid storage plans after limiting WhatsApp backups? Please share your valuable thoughts with us in the comment section below.