WhatsApp is working on a feature that will allow users to manage the size of their chat backups in preparation for a possible change to Google Drive.
WhatsApp users can now protect their chat backups with end-to-end encryption
The update comes in the form of a new “Manage backup size” option in Settings, which offers granular controls over what gets archived and what doesn’t. According to the app’s developer blog, WABetaInfo, users will be able to instruct the app to only save important files, such as photos, videos, audio, and documents. WhatsApp will also provide a real-time estimate of how much storage space is left in the backup.
The blog post revealed that the reason for this update is that Google may remove unlimited storage for WhatsApp users. Currently, users can back up their WhatsApp chats to Google Drive and this does not count towards the free 15GB of storage offered. This is a result of a deal the two companies struck in 2018.
WhatsApp speculates that Google will change this deal and make user backups rely on Drive again. In response, WhatsApp is creating the new feature to give users more options for backup storage.
