A new WhatsApp beta has just dropped which is exciting because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up enabling you to use a lot more features with your messaging app. The last exciting thing that WhatsApp did involved encrypting backups so that users could obtain a great deal more security while they looked into keeping a record of any and all conversations that they might have had in the past.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the latest update has a lot to do with backups as well. WhatsApp is expanding the rollout for backup encryption, and it will soon give users the ability to manage their backup sizes so that they can obtain greater control over how much space their WhatsApp conversations take up, as first spotted by WABI. This can be great for people that want to limit WhatsApp’s storage usage with all things having been considered and taken into account.
One thing that you would be able to do with this update is that you would be able to control what gets saved in the backup. While some people might want to incorporate a lot of media into their backups, others would want their messages taking up a lion’s share of the space. After all, it can be a huge hassle to have to delete images and videos from your backup to free up space that can then be used for messages instead. Hence, being able to prevent media from being stored in the first place can be a very useful feature.
One reason for why WhatsApp might be trying this out is that your WhatsApp backups have started to take up a lot space on Google Drive. Previously an agreement between the two companies meant that your WhatsApp backup would not end up counting towards your overall Google Drive storage limit, but now it will be at least partially contributing to it. This means that giving users more control over backup size has ended up becoming a lot more important than it has ever been prior to this point in time.
While nothing is confirmed on that front, it could very well be a factor which would increase the importance of backup size controls. This feature will definitely be useful to a lot of users once it gets rolled out.
Read next: WhatsApp tests a new feature called ‘Community’ and users are intrigued it will replace the current Groups
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the latest update has a lot to do with backups as well. WhatsApp is expanding the rollout for backup encryption, and it will soon give users the ability to manage their backup sizes so that they can obtain greater control over how much space their WhatsApp conversations take up, as first spotted by WABI. This can be great for people that want to limit WhatsApp’s storage usage with all things having been considered and taken into account.
One thing that you would be able to do with this update is that you would be able to control what gets saved in the backup. While some people might want to incorporate a lot of media into their backups, others would want their messages taking up a lion’s share of the space. After all, it can be a huge hassle to have to delete images and videos from your backup to free up space that can then be used for messages instead. Hence, being able to prevent media from being stored in the first place can be a very useful feature.
One reason for why WhatsApp might be trying this out is that your WhatsApp backups have started to take up a lot space on Google Drive. Previously an agreement between the two companies meant that your WhatsApp backup would not end up counting towards your overall Google Drive storage limit, but now it will be at least partially contributing to it. This means that giving users more control over backup size has ended up becoming a lot more important than it has ever been prior to this point in time.
While nothing is confirmed on that front, it could very well be a factor which would increase the importance of backup size controls. This feature will definitely be useful to a lot of users once it gets rolled out.
Read next: WhatsApp tests a new feature called ‘Community’ and users are intrigued it will replace the current Groups