New evidence found in a beta build of WhatsApp for Android suggests that Google can no longer offer unlimited storage for WhatsApp backup.
This probably should not come as a great surprise, as Google is slowly falling down on its unlimited storage offerings. Over the years, Google offered storage allotment to Google Drive Customers, which ranged from generous to uncontrolled unlimited, but the search giants are slowly running back.
For example, when Google announced the new Google photos in 2015, it came up with unlimited storage of people’s individual photos libraries, provided that they were ready to live with some appropriate upper limits on the size of personal photos and videos. Last year, however, the free ride ended, and Google photos began to count towards the general Google Drive Storage quota.
Similarly, Google and WhatsApp had signed an agreement to exempt backup from the popular chat app a few years ago. This meant that people using WhatsApp on Android could enjoy originally unlimited storage in Google Drive for their WhatsApp data – in which any related media files were sent or obtained.
It was certainly a good bonus that their iPhone-Toting Brethren did not benefit since then, of course, Apple does not offer any such deal when it comes to collecting the third-party app data in ICLUD. Unfortunately, it seems that the deal between Google and WhatsApp is about to end. Code found by Hobb The latest WhatsApp beta for Android shows that the chat app is taking steps to deal with a world where Google drive storage will now be limited.
The people of WABETAINFO noticed that they first saw the signs of this three months ago, when Google Drive had a new feature for the management of WhatsApp chat backup in Google Drive. This feature will allow some message types to be kept out of the backup to save the location on Google Drive.
Since the storage looked like an unnecessary option when unlimited, it used to create concern that things could be changing, and now the latest WhatsApp beta seems to prove it. The new text strings found in the latest beta build show messages that may appear when someone reaches their Google drive storage range, and notifications about the new border.
It is not completely clear at the point whether Google will still provide separate storage for WhatsApp backups in addition to the general Google Drive quota. However, it is very clear that whatever Google does storage will be limited in some way.