WhatsApp to end free Google Drive storage in 2024: Here's how to manage your files now

UPDATED: JAN 14, 2024, 5:23 AM 

Meta-owned social media platform WhatsApp is ending the free Google Drive storage space offered to Android users for storing their chat history, including images and videos. The new changes mean that WhatsApp data stored on Google Drive will soon be counted towards the 15GB storage limit, or users will have the option of signing up for a Google One subscription. 

Intimidating about the new changes in a post in November, Google wrote, “As an important heads up, WhatsApp backups on Android will soon start counting toward your Google Account cloud storage limit, similar to how WhatsApp backups are handled on other mobile platforms. This change will first start rolling out to WhatsApp Beta users starting in December 2023, then gradually to all WhatsApp users on Android starting early next year." 

WhatsApp had said that the new changes will start rolling out to all users in 2024 and the company will start notifying users 30 days in advance with a banner in WhatsApp Settings> Chats > Chat backup. 

Our version of the WhatsApp Beta app has now started showing the message, “Backups will start using your Google storage in the next few months."

How to manage your WhatsApp storage without taking Google One subscription? 

While the obvious choice for WhatsApp users who exceed the 15GB storage limit is to subscribe to Google One, the company is still offering its customers the ability to transfer these files between Android devices.

For example, users who are not interested in storing their WhatsApp chats on their Google account can simply use the WhatsApp chat transfer feature when moving to a new Android.

It's worth noting that these changes will only affect Android users, since WhatsApp doesn't offer free storage on iOS. Furthermore, Apple only offers 5GB of free storage to its non-paying users, compared to the 15GB offered by Google.