Daniel Mercer
Fortunately, it won’t require much additional storage space.
This week marks a significant change in how Google calculates storage for accounts. Starting July 7, all data within Android backups will now count towards the storage limit on your Google account. Previously, only media uploaded to Google Photos and photos or videos sent via MMS counted against this limit. New Android users will be subject to this rule immediately, while existing users will experience the change over the upcoming months.
According to a spokesperson from Google, “Android backup allows you to save the data from your phone to your Google Account, enabling easy restoration or setup of a new device.” They also mentioned, “We have revised our policy so that all Android backup data will now contribute to Google Account storage. On average, this is expected to add only 40MB. We are also enhancing transparency and providing new controls that allow users to choose which apps and data they wish to back up.”
These new controls can be found in the device’s backup settings menu. Users have the option to exclude device settings, call history, and SMS or MMS messages from the backup process, along with standard toggles for including specific app data.
This update is part of Google’s ongoing adjustments to storage policies. In May, the company began testing a reduced default free storage limit for new accounts, lowering the maximum from 15GB to 5GB unless users link their phone numbers.
Brandon Fletcher
