This evening I received an email from google drive telling me this.

Due to a new agreement between WhatsApp and Google, WhatsApp backups will no longer count against Google Drive storage quota. However, any WhatsApp backups that have not been updated in more than a year will automatically be removed from storage.

This policy will go into effect for all users on November 12, 2018 though some users may see the quota benefits earlier. To avoid the loss of any backups, we recommend that people manually back up WhatsApp before November 12, 2018.

Recommended Actions

1. Confirm that your current Android WhatsApp client is backed up

2. If you would like to refresh any existing backups, please manually back up your WhatsApp client before October 30, 2018.


The Google Drive team.