You Could Soon Have To Pay To Backup WhatsApp Messages On Android

WhatsApp Backups on Google Drive Will Now Count Towards Your Storage Quota

For quite a long time now, you’ve been able to set your WhatsApp settings so that backups are automatically and periodically stored in your Google Drive, whether it is daily, weekly, or monthly. The thing is, when media is included, these backups can get big. My current WhatsApp backup weighs in at 10 GB.

Google provides 15 GB of free storage that you can use across Gmail, Drive, and Google Photos, but luckily, the size of your WhatsApp backup previously wasn’t counted towards your storage quota, thanks to a handy deal the messaging app made with Google. Unfortunately, that’s about to change.

Google is shaking things up, which means that my 10 GB WhatsApp backup will count towards that 15 GB. If you already pay for extra storage via Google One, you likely won’t mind too much, but for people like me, I have to admit it’s a little inconvenient. Google has been benevolent enough though, and for that, I am grateful.

How To Reduce The Size Of Your WhatsApp Backup

If you don’t use Google Drive much, but value being able to keep a safe copy of your WhatsApp messages there, it’s a good idea to always try and stay below 15 GB when it comes to the size of your backup file.

There are a few things you can try out to make your WhatsApp backup smaller:

1. The most significant way to decrease the file size of a backup is to stop it from backing up videos: Settings > Chats > Chat backup > Toggle off “Include videos”.
2. Of course, you might want to preserve your media, and that’s fine. But you probably don’t need every single video. You can view the biggest video files and the chats taking up the most space by going to Settings > Storage and data > Manage storage.
3. The next thing is to delete group chats that you don’t follow/need. The fewer chats there are to back up, the smaller the file will be. You can also get rid of old chats that haven’t been touched in a year or more. Just long-press on the chats and tap the garbage can icon.
4. Turning on disappearing messages can automate cleanup and prevent any chats from getting excessively large. Settings > Privacy > Default message timer

What Google One Plans Are Available?

If your WhatsApp backup is going to be massive no matter what, you’re probably just better off getting a Google One plan to expand your storage limit.

You can choose plans going as high as 30 TB, but most regular people won’t need to go past the 100 GB or 2 TB options in normal usage. The monthly price starts at $1.99 for 100 GB, goes to $9.99 for 2 TB, and as much as $149.99 for 30 TB of cloud storage.