New Delhi: WhatsApp, the popular instant messaging app owned by Meta, has recently introduced several upgrades and changes for its users. One of the major changes is the shift to Google Drive for chat backup storage. The company had announced in its updated terms and conditions last year that from January 2024, WhatsApp will no longer use its own dedicated space for chat backup. Instead, it will use Google Drive, the cloud service provided by Google.
This means that users will have to manage their Google Drive storage space accordingly or pay for additional storage if they want to back up their WhatsApp chats and media. WhatsApp chat backups will be saved in the same Google Drive account that is linked to the Gmail account of the user. This also means that WhatsApp will share the Google Drive storage space with other services like Google Photos and Gmail.
Users have some options to deal with this change. If they do not want to pay for the Google Drive account and they want to use WhatsApp Beta, they can choose not to back up their chats in the cloud service. Instead, they can use the in-built WhatsApp chat transfer tool while switching to a new phone. However, this option requires both the old and new phones to be in the same Wi-Fi network and does not need an active internet connection.
Another option is to buy additional storage space on Google Drive by subscribing to the Google One plan, which offers various plans starting from 100 GB to 2 TB. Users can also reduce the size of their backup by excluding images and videos while backing up their WhatsApp chat history. Users can check the status of their WhatsApp backup process in Google Drive by going to WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Backup.
It is worth noting that iPhone users have been using iCloud storage for chat backup for a long time and now the same rule is being applied for Android users as well. This change is part of WhatsApp’s efforts to improve its features and security for its users.
