WhatsApp's Android backup used to be free. Since 2024 it eats your Google storage.

If you back up WhatsApp on an Android phone, that backup now sits in the same 15GB as your Gmail, your Drive files and your Photos. Google’s account help page says so directly: storage is shared across Gmail, Drive and Photos, and “WhatsApp backups” are on its list of things that count.

It did not always work that way. From November 12, 2018, a deal between WhatsApp and Google kept backups out of the Drive quota. The same deal had a catch: a backup that went a year without an update was deleted.

Google ended the exemption with a post on November 14, 2023. It said backups would start counting toward your storage “similar to how WhatsApp backups are handled on other mobile platforms.” WhatsApp beta users saw it first, in December 2023. It then rolled out to all Android users in the first half of 2024, with a banner in Chat settings 30 days before it applied to you. Workspace accounts from a job or school were not affected.

Illustration, not a real WhatsApp or Google screen.

Google’s framing was that Android users still get a better deal than most: 15GB free, which it called three times what most mobile platforms give. That is fair as a comparison. iPhone backups have always counted against iCloud, and iCloud’s free tier is 5GB. The catch is that the 15GB is one pool. A full Google Photos library already uses it, and Gmail counts too, including Spam and Trash. A WhatsApp backup now competes with all of that.

When the pool fills up, Google’s own advice is to free space to resume backups, or to buy more. Google’s announcement also promised eligible users limited, one-time Google One promotions, which is the other thing that came with the change.

What it costs in India

Google One’s paid plans in India, per a price roundup checked in October 2026:

Plan	Per month	Over 3 years
Lite, 30GB	₹59	₹2,124
Basic, 100GB	₹130	₹4,680
Standard, 200GB	₹210	₹7,560

These prices come from a third-party roundup, because Google’s own plan page does not show rupee prices in text. Check the price at checkout. Introductory offers can lower the first months.

What to do first

Three changes cost nothing and shrink the backup.

1. In WhatsApp, go to Settings, Chat, Chat backup and turn off Include videos.
2. Delete chats and media you do not need. Google says deleting items in WhatsApp removes them from your next backup.
3. Or point the backup at a second Google account. Add it to the phone, then pick it under Chat backup. Its 15GB is then used only by WhatsApp.

Moving to a new Android phone? WhatsApp’s Chat Transfer moves your chats directly between phones over Wi-Fi, with no cloud backup in between.

The known issue

This is a decision, not an oversight. The exemption was negotiated in 2018, it was ended in 2023, and the free allowance stayed at 15GB through the change. Nothing here is broken. The cost simply moved onto your account, and the easiest way to make the warning go away is the paid plan.