WhatsApp warns users to backup chats before it deletes them

Chats of WhatsApp users might be at risk as the messaging app will soon start deleting data of users if it is not backed up.

Social media app WhatsApp will soon start deleting certain messages, photos, videos, audio files, documents and even GIFs that users have saved, as a part of the update that alters the way backed-up WhatsApp content works, reported The Sun.

Till now, WhatsApp data was backed up on the cloud storage service, Google Drive, but now Google made a slight change where the WhatsApp back-ups will be stored on the service but won’t use any Google Drive storage space, as it used to earlier thus, will be all for free.

However, a catch to this is that the app will start deleting certain bits of old content and the app is urging users to manually back up their messages before the November 12, 2018 update. If a user has not updated the WhatsApp back-up for over a year, it will be entirely deleted from Google Drive.

“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,” Google explained.

Notably, the messages won’t be deleted from the app itself, but from Google Drive. This means that changing of phones or deleting WhatsApp won’t let you restore the messages from back-up. Google said that the new system will ‘go into effect for all users’ by the deadline. Also, the warning is only for Android users.

Moreover, as per Mirror, Google also recommended to manually backup WhatsApp before the set date in order to prevent backup loss. For manually backing up data, the user would first have to have a Google account and have Google Drive installed on the phone. Then, open WhatsApp and go into ‘Menu’, ‘Settings’, ‘Chats’, and then finally ‘Back Up’. Selecting back up will automatically backup the data to Google Drive.