For years, Google has offered its billion-plus users 15GB of free storage, no strings attached. Other than holding an account with the search company, of course. Not only is that free storage a godsend for storing emails and just about anything else in Google Drive, but it’s also handy for keeping track of your WhatsApp storage. Now, it’s going away for new accounts, replaced with only 5GB of free storage. But there’s a way to bump it back to 15GB.
On Cloud 5
You’ll need to give up something rather personal, though. Your phone number. Link and verify it, and you’ll get the same storage as the rest of the world. Don’t, and you’ll have to make do with a third of the storage. For most readers, this is a non-issue, having created their accounts some time ago. But your kids? They’ll hate it.
Google seemingly confirmed the change on its support page. Where it used to say users were eligible for a full 15GB of storage, it now reads “up to 15GB”. That “up to” bit is reliant on the user handing over their deets. Giving out a fake one isn’t an option here either. Google needs to verify it first, which likely means punching in a code.
Read More: WhatsApp wants to back up your chats – and maybe charge for it
Google confirmed to Engadget that the change was just a test, meaning it may not stick around forever. While it didn’t initially confirm which regions were included, Android Authority notes that many of the user reports stemmed from African countries. We created a brand-new Google account, and did not receive the prompt. Instead, we started our new Google journey with 15GB of storage, seemingly confirming it hasn’t reached here… yet.
“We’re testing a new storage policy for new accounts created in select regions that will help us continue to provide a high quality storage service to our users, while encouraging users to improve their account security and data recovery,” said Google in a statement.
