Google is tightening the limits on the free storage included with your Google Account. Android backups previously did not count against your storage quota, but that is changing. After quietly updating its support page in early July, Google is now emailing Android users to inform them that their backups will count against their storage limit.
In an email to Android users about the “New Android Backup Storage Policy & Controls,” Google details that “all data included in your Android device backups will begin counting towards your Google Account storage limit.” The change will be effective in 45 days and will increase your Google account’s storage usage.
If this change causes you to hit your Google account’s storage limit, your Android phone will stop backing up automatically.
To make things easier, Google’s email highlights how much extra storage your Android device backup will take.
In most cases, this should not be much, especially since photos and media files are already accounted for against your storage limit and do not form a part of this cloud backup. At best, you are looking at around 30–60 MB of extra storage usage.
More granular backup controls
As part of this change, Google is also rolling out more granular backup controls for Android 9 and newer devices. You can choose which types of data to back up to the cloud and select the apps whose data you want to include. So, if a particular app takes up a lot of space or you don’t want to back up its data, you can toggle off backups for it.
You can see your Android phone’s cloud backup storage use and control its settings through the Google One app or through Android’s backup settings.
This is a step in the right direction, as it will make Android cloud backups more transparent. Currently, it is unclear which apps back up their data to the cloud, and you cannot exclude individual apps from backups.
The cloud backups counting against your storage limit should not be a big concern due to its relatively small size.
