WhatsApp Drops Support for Unlimited Chat Backups on Google Drive With Latest Beta Update: Report
WhatsApp is reportedly dropping support for unlimited backups of chats in Google Drive to users who signed up for beta updates. Users of Android smartphones will no longer be able to access free cloud storage, similar to those who use WhatsApp on iOS. The change affects only beta testers at the moment, but it is expected that the Meta-owned messaging app will also discontinue the free Google Drive storage for all Android smartphone users in the next few weeks or months.
MySmartPrice informs that WhatsApp is dropping support for unlimited chat back-ups to Google Drive. This was for beta testers of Android. In the settings, the app will show a banner under chats and chat backup to inform users of the change. Gadgets 360 could have been unable to reproduce this message after updating the WhatsApp beta version on the Play Store.
In November last year, WhatsApp and Google both announced they would no longer be offering unlimited chat backups through Google Drive to Android users. According to the timeline provided, the change would be rolled out to beta users in December and then to all users during the first half 2024.
The beta testers affected by this change will receive a banner letting them know that they still have one month to go before their chat backups begin to count against their Google Drive storage limit. The new storage policy is five-years after WhatsApp Google began offering unlimited chat backups on Google Drive that didn’t use up space.
Google hasn’t been the only company to restrict access to cloud storage. Three years after the launch of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, stopped supporting unlimited “original” backups. In 2020 the company stopped offering unlimited free photo backups to all users. It claimed that there were over 1 billion users and over 4 trillion uploaded photos.
