Bad news for users of the popular messaging app. In this case, disastrous news for those who use WhatsApp on Android, which in Spain is equivalent to practically all smartphone owners. As confirmed by the Wabetainfo portal, specialized in offering exclusive information about WhatsApp, unlimited backups in Google Drive would have the days numbered. What will happen then with user backups?
First it was Google Photos and now it seems that it will be Google Drive to make backup copies of WhatsApp that will impose limitations on users. Until now, under an agreement between Google and Facebook (owner of WhatsApp), backup copies of the application did not take up space on Google Drive. This allowed us to have a backup of all the conversations together with the photos, videos, audios and other multimedia content of WhatsApp.
Free copies may be made, but with limitations
About 3 months ago, the popular web wabetainfo found details about a new feature WhatsApp was developing to manage chats when backing up to Google Drive. Broadly speaking, users could define which chats would go into the copy and which chats would stay out, all with the aim of taking up less space on Google Drive.
This doesn’t make much sense since the backup copies of WhatsApp for Android that are made in Google Drive do not count for the available space, that is, they are unlimited. It doesn’t matter if the user makes a 100-megabyte copy or makes a 3-gigabyte copy, their available space in the cloud remains the same. But from the looks of it, there’s a simpler explanation for this: free unlimited backup as we know it. their days are numbered.
As we can see in the screenshot above, it seems that there is already enough evidence to indicate that this will be a reality sooner rather than later. Notices will be added when “Google Drive is almost full” and information will also begin to be offered on the entry into force of these changes. This should not surprise anyone because, as we have already pointed out, it is the same thing that happened a year ago with Google Photos.
In short, we will continue to be able to make free backup copies of chats, photos, videos, etc. but they will be limited. It is possible that we have a number of free gigabytes and then we can not save anything else, unless we pay a higher storage plan. At the moment, the information of these payment plans has not transpired. In WhatsApp for iOS, which keeps its backups in iCloud, this already works in this way more or less.