WhatsApp chat backups on Android no longer get unlimited free space on Google Drive. Instead, backups of chats, photos and videos count toward your Google Account storage, which for personal accounts includes 15 GB of free space shared across Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos. Users who need more space can sign up for a Google One subscription.
Updated October 2026. We checked the policy against the original announcement coverage, replaced outdated Google One prices with current, dated figures and added sources.
Google announced in November 2023 that WhatsApp chat backups on Android would start counting toward users’ Google Account storage. The change reached WhatsApp beta users first, starting in December 2023, and then rolled out gradually to all WhatsApp users on Android in 2024. WhatsApp and Google had made these backups free of the storage quota in 2018, so this reversed that arrangement. Users with a Google Workspace account through work or school were not affected at the time. If you are close to your limit, you can delete data you no longer need or buy more storage with Google One.
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The change is likely to increase the use of Google’s paid storage service, Google One, which is billed monthly or annually and is priced differently in each country. In the U.S., 9to5Google reported in December 2025 that the standard annual prices were $19.99 for the 100 GB Basic plan and $99.99 for the 2 TB Premium plan. In India, Google’s plans page listed the 30 GB Lite plan at ₹59 a month and the 100 GB Basic plan at ₹130 a month as of October 2026. Check the Google One plans page for the current prices where you live.
If users do not want to get a Google One subscription, they can use the free storage wisely. The photos consume more space, so you can go to the WhatsApp settings, click on storage and data, and click on manage storage. This way, WhatsApp will suggest various ways to reduce storage and get your work done with the free 15 GB of data without paying extra.
