The social media platform WhatsApp will end the free Google Drive storage provided to users for chat backup and storing images and videos. It means that the free 15GB allowance will now also include the backup of WhatsApp, and users will have the option to sign up for a Google One subscription.
Google announced in November that WhatsApp chat backups on Android will start contributing to users’ Google Drive storage. The change was made for WhatsApp beta users in December 2023, and it will be implemented for all WhatsApp users on Android in early 2024. They also said that users will be notified 30 days in advance, and a banner will be visible in the chat backup option on WhatsApp settings. The banner displays a prompt saying backups will commence utilizing your Google Drive storage in the upcoming months. It will give the users adequate time to delete the unrequired data from storage or purchase a Google One subscription, depending on their needs.
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This will increase the usage of Google’s paid storage service, Google One. It offers three plans on a monthly or an annual basis. The basic monthly subscription costs $1.99 for 100 GB of storage, the standard plan is $2.99 for 200 GB of data, and the premium plan is $9.99 for 2TB. However, the prices for India have not been announced yet.
If users do not want to get a Google One subscription, they can use the free storage wisely. The photos consume more space, so you can go to the WhatsApp settings, click on storage and data, and click on manage storage. This way, WhatsApp will suggest various ways to reduce storage and get your work done with the free 15 GB of data without paying extra.
