The update will come in the form of a new “Manage Backup Size” option in the Settings, providing detailed controls over what is and isn’t archived. According to the app’s developer blog, WABetaInfo, users will be able to instruct the app only to store important files, such as photos, videos, audio, and documents. WhatsApp also will provide a real-time estimate of how much storage is left in the backup. The blog post revealed the reason for this update is because Google may remove unlimited storage for WhatsApp users. Currently, users can backup their WhatsApp chats to Google Drive and not have it count against the free 15GB of storage provided. This is the result of a deal the two companies made back in 2018. WhatsApp postulates that Google will change this deal and have user backups count on Drive again. In response, WhatsApp is creating the new feature to give users more options for backup storage. In the past, Google has changed storage offerings that were once unlimited, such as Google Photos. WhatsApp states that nothing official has been announced, but the company will continue to move forward with this new data management option. A release date for the update was not provided, but WABetaInfo assures it will keep users posted.
