WhatsApp: towards the end of unlimited storage of backups on Google Drive?

WhatsApp users on Android smartphones may soon have to pay for Google cloud storage if they want to retain their chat histories, a new beta of the app has revealed.

For now, Google is offering Android smartphone users the ability to back up their WhatsApp conversations and media files to Google Drive without any restrictions. Indeed, in 2018, Google and WhatsApp had reached an agreement that the backups of the application that we make on Google Drive would not be deducted from our storage space.

However, as disclosed by WABetaInfo, Google may stop providing unlimited backup storage to WhatsApp users on Android, limiting free storage and setting up a quota. These backups on Google Drive had also recently been the subject of a controversy, since according to an investigation carried out by 17 American prosecutors, Google would have omitted to specify that the WhatsApp conversations recorded on Google Drive were not encrypted. end to end.

Google could end unlimited backups on WhatsApp

WABetaInfo has shared a screenshot that appears to show the source code behind the backup management feature that WhatsApp may launch in the future. According to the code, the app will be able to notify users when their Google Drive storage quota is exhaustedwhen the backup storage limit will be reached and when the changes will take place.

Also, the report states that Google will still offer some quota of storage space to Android users to store WhatsApp backups for free, but it will be a limited package. Details on the new storage plan remain unknown at this time.

The end of unlimited storage on WhatsApp is not really a surprise. Last October, WhatsApp was already working on a new feature called Manage Backup Size which would show users the size of their chat backups and give them access to buttons to exclude certain file types such as photos, audio, videos , documents and other media files from chat backups to Google Drive.

Source: WABetaInfo