Backing up WhatsApp chats in the cloud was previously possible for free on Android phones. From January 2024 you will have to pay for it under certain circumstances. Therefore, you should take action now.
- So far, your backups on Google Drive are not counted towards your storage space. This changes at the turn of the year.
- If you then use up the free Google Drive storage, you will have to add more for a fee.
- One way to get around this is to create a second Google account or deactivate the function.
The older ones among you will remember that there was a time when WhatsApp cost money. You had to pay 99 cents a year to use the messenger on Android phones. At least on paper, the messenger often waived the payment and gave you free months. WhatsApp is now officially free, but you may soon have to spend money again for a feature. It’s about backing up your chat histories from an Android phone to Google Drive.
So far there are no restrictions on this. The WhatsApp backup is not counted towards the 15 gigabytes of free Google Drive storage, but that is now changing. Google Sea Backups from WhatsApp beta users should be credited to your Google Drive storage space as early as December, and from January 2024 this will also apply to all other messenger users.
Anyone who has been backing up their chat histories in the cloud for several years will quickly find their backup file to be 5 to 6 gigabytes. This would use up a third of the free Google Drive storage space. If you use the memory intensively in other ways, things can quickly get tight.
Do you want to know whether you will have to purchase additional storage space from 2024? First, you need to determine how much space is still unused in your Google Drive. This is how you find out.
Determine available storage in Google Drive
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Open the Google Drive app and tap the three lines on the right in the search bar.
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Now Google will show you the used and free storage in your Google Drive.
Now you know how much free space is still available in your Drive. Next you need to determine the size of your WhatsApp backup. To do this you have to carry out the following steps.
Determine the size of the WhatsApp backup
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Opens the settings in WhatsApp. Now select “Chat” here and then “Chat Backup”.
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You will now see the size of your WhatsApp backup. One way you can reduce this size is by excluding videos from backup.
This is how much additional Google Drive storage costs
If the free storage space is used up, you will either have to clean up your Google Drive or purchase additional storage space. The cheapest storage upgrade currently costs 1.99 dollars per month and gives you 100 gigabytes of storage space in Google Drive.
Another way to get around the problem is to create a second Google account and use it exclusively for WhatsApp backups. In the linked article we tell you what you need to consider. On the iPhone, you have had to increase your storage space in iCloud for a long time for larger WhatsApp backups.
If you don’t want to clean up your Google Drive between the years, you can also deactivate the chat backup in Google Drive. To do this, you have to do the following on Android phones.
Disable cloud backup
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Opens the settings in WhatsApp. Select “Chats” and then “Chat Backup”.
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Then tap “Backup to Google Drive” and select “Never” or “Only when I tap ‘Save'”.
Of course, you can still back up your chats locally for free on both Android phones and iPhones.
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