Your WhatsApp photo and video backup is in danger

Are you one of those who saves even the smallest meme, humorous video and photos that are sent to you by WhatsApp? Well, Google Photos is working to prevent this from saturating its servers and the storage capacity it offers to all users. In other words, there are changes that will limit the backup of WhatsApp in Google Photos as we know it today. The tests are underway and we already know a few details about it.

Do not worry. At the moment all your messages, photos, captures and other elements are safe Thanks to the backup that WhatsApp allows you to save on Google Drive and, above all, to the possibility of making backup copies in Google Photos, all these elements are saved in the cloud linked to your profile. Thus, if you lose your mobile, it is destroyed or simply change to a new terminal, you do not need to pass all these elements. Just sign in with your credentials to access them anywhere and from any device. But space is finite, and COVID-19 has put users and companies like Google in a bind.

Now, in the latest update of Google Photos, 4.53, they have discovered lines of code that can change the normal operation of the application.Specifically, this function as useful as create backup copies of folders linked to messaging applications. Something that, until now, was automatic. And that could automatically disappear. At the moment it seems to be just the intention, without the function being implemented in the current version distributed in the Google Play Store. But everything indicates that Google does not want to store each of the photos that are sent to you by WhatsApp, Telegram and other messaging services.

The message next to the line of code talks about the change in usage trend due to COVID-19. During these days of the pandemic, users would be sending a greater number of photos and videos through WhatsApp, which would shake Internet resources. Specifically, the space on the Google Photos servers, which usually automatically saves WhatsApp audiovisual content folders. Thus, in future versions of Google Photos, and if the tests go well, backup copies of photos that arrive from WhatsApp could be automatically disabledWith what your photos and videos would not be safe with a copy on the Internet.

Now, this is an option within Settings that could be managed manually. In other words, Google Photos would not collect the photos automatically, but as users we could activate it at any time.

For now we will have to wait and see the experience of the testing of this change before it reaches Google Photos for everyone.

Other news

By the way, in addition to the possible future feature of automatically disabling photo and video backups, Google Photos has lines of code that bring changes to the new version.

One of them is the autoplay video functionThat is, see the content of the videos directly in the gallery before clicking on them. A function that does not seem to have been very well received and could disappear in future versions. At the moment we only have clues thanks to the line of code that talks about the default deactivation of this function. Although it is not active yet.

Google Photos is working on the ability to set a photo as the Google Account's profile picture pic.twitter.com/ROEqALiY1J

- Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) June 20, 2020

Another function that will soon be coming to Google Photos is that of being able to set a profile photo for this service. Thus, you will be able to choose a a different photo than the one in your Google account to appear as a header in your photo album. Again, news that is still to come after passing the relevant tests in the coming days.