Illustration: The Verge
Android users on WhatsApp won’t have a free ride anymore when it comes to backups. The change comes after five years of Android users’ backups not counting toward Google Drive storage limits at all — something that was never true for iOS users.
Google and WhatsApp both announced that, starting for WhatsApp beta users in December, chat history, including images and videos, will again chew away at Google Drive storage, whether you have the company’s free 15GB plan or you pay for storage.
WhatsApp said the change will come to all of its Android users in the first half of 2024, and it will notify users 30 days ahead of time. The notification will be in the form of a banner in Settings > Chat > Chat backup.
Users who don’t want to use…