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WhatsApp has entered into a partnership with Google that will ensure all WhatsApp chat backups are not counted against Google Drive storage quota. With WhatsApp soaring in popularity in many parts of the world, the chat backup size has also increased exponentially for many users especially when one starts backing up their media files to Drive as well.
Thus, by partnering with Google, WhatsApp is ensuring that irrespective of the size, their chat backups do not count against their Google Drive storage. By default, Google gives 15GB of free storage space to new users which can be further expanded by paying a monthly or yearly subscription fees.
Google notes in its announcement that any WhatsApp chat backup on Drive that has not been updated for over a year will automatically be deleted. The new policy goes into effect from November 12, 2018, though for some users, the rollout may happen earlier than usual. Google recommends users to do a manual WhatsApp chat backup before October 30, 2018, to ensure that their Drive chat backup is not deleted.
Our Take
This move from WhatsApp will encourage users to regularly back up their chats to Drive. It also leads to a better user experience as many users were being forced to delete other files from their Google Drive as they were hitting the limit of their storage quota due to hefty size of their WhatsApp chat backups.
