WhatsApp users on Android can back up their data to Google Drive unlimitedly. Unfortunately, this privilege for WhatsApp users on Android seems to be going away in the near future.
The WABetaInfo page found a series of codes indicating that WhatsApp will remove unlimited Google Drive backups for Android users.
From the screenshots they shared there are several sections that are highlighted, including the warning that WhatsApp will introduce changes to backups on Google Drive.
There is also a code that contains a notification that Google Drive is almost full, when the backup has exceeded the quota, and information about when this change will take effect, as quoted from WABetaInfo, Tuesday (1/2/2022).
Based on this series of codes, Google will still offer free Google Drive storage quota for WhatsApp users, but the capacity will be limited and the full information is currently unknown.
The line of codes for storing WhatsApp on Google Drive found WABetaInfo Photo: WABetaInfo
Google Drive itself has a free plan with 15GB of storage for users. Hopefully the storage quota for WhatsApp will not take the 15GB quota.
If true, this change will only affect WhatsApp users on Android. The reason is, WhatsApp users on iOS have already limited their backup capacity by iCloud.
This news comes just a few months after WABetaInfo discovered a new feature that allows users to manage the size of backed up WhatsApp data on Android. So WhatsApp has prepared an option for users to set the backup capacity provided.
This isn't really that surprising either. Last year Google also removed the unlimited storage option for Google Photos users, so this move may be their way of getting users to buy cloud storage.