Tag: google drive

WhatsApp Drops Support for Unlimited Chat Backups on Google Drive With Latest Beta Update: Report

WhatsApp has reportedly begun dropping support for unlimited chat backups on Google Drive for users who have signed up to receive beta updates of the popular messaging app. The platform will no longer offer free cloud storage for users on Android smartphones — similar to users who access WhatsApp on iOS. While the change currently affects beta testers, the Meta-owned messaging platform is also expected to discontinue free storage on Google Drive for all users on Android smartphones in the coming weeks or months.

MySmartPrice reports that WhatsApp has started to drop support for unlimited chat backups on Google Drive for beta testers on Android. The app will display a banner in the app’s settings under Chats > Chat backup informing users that the changes will go into effect within 30 days. The change could be rolling out to testers in batches — Gadgets 360 was unable to reproduce the message on WhatsApp for Android after updating to the latest beta version from the Play Store.

Last November, WhatsApp and Google announced that the firms were discontinuing unlimited chat backups via Google Drive for users on Android. The change was supposed to roll out to beta testers in December and to all users in the first half of 2024, according to the timeline provided by the messaging platform. 

Beta testers who are affected by the change will see a banner informing them that they have a month before chat backups start to count towards their Google Drive storage quota. The updated storage policy comes five years after WhatsApp and Google started to offer unlimited chat backups that wouldn’t take up space on Google Drive — the company offers 15GB of free storage for all accounts, which is higher than Apple and Microsoft that both offer 5GB of free cloud storage.

This isn’t the first move from Google to limit access to free storage on its cloud services. In February 2022, the company ended support for unlimited “original” photo backups for Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL owners, three years after the phones were launched. The company dropped support for unlimited and free photo backups for all users back in 2020, stating that it had over a billion users at the time with over 4 trillion uploads and 28 billion weekly uploads from users.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel.


Oppo Find X7 Leaks in New Hands-on Video Ahead of January 8 Launch



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Google Docs, Sheets, Slides on Android Optimised for Foldable Phones, Tablets

Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides have been optimised for tablets and foldable phones, the search giant has announced, as part of several changes to its workspace applications for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. The company previously announced it would update more than 20 Google applications to run better on tablets during Google I/O earlier this year. It has also added drag-and-drop improvements and full mouse support for these Google Workspace apps.

In a recent blog post Google has shared all the new features that are coming to Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Drive on Android. Most of these features will be useful for tablet and foldable phone owners.

Some Workspace applications are getting the one of the most sought-after features: drag-and-drop for content. This will let users simply drag content from an app into Slides, as well as other Google Apps, according to the company.

This means that when you have two applications open side-by-side, you’ll be able to simply drag content from Slides into other apps on Android. This will make importing media much faster and easier. The feature was launched for Google Drive earlier this year allowing users to quickly upload files by dragging and dropping them into the app.

Google has also enabled drag-and-drop support for files and folders around in the Drive app to change their location.

Additionally, the Google Docs app has been updated with full mouse support on Android. This will let you select text by simply clicking and dragging the text instead of scrolling through the document. All of these features are rolling out now, so if you’re unable to try out these features, you should make sure that your Google Workspace apps are fully updated, Google says.

Recently, the company also rolled out redesigned toggles for its word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps on Android. The new switches are designed like a pill that made the Material 3 (M3) switch larger than before. It has also added new colour mappings, as well as a taller and broader track. The redesigned switches are also available on the latest version of Google’s Workspace apps for Android.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

WeTransfer Is Down, Downloads Are Crashing; Company Investigating Issues With Service

WeTransfer, a popular service that allows users to transfer large files and is used by a large number of Internet users across the globe, is down. The Amsterdam, Netherlands-based company has also confirmed that it is currently experiencing failures on downloads, uploads and other services. However, it is not confirmed whether the issue is limited to India or affects users in other regions. A few members of the Gadgets 360 team provided details of the issue when working with the platform.

Various team members at Gadgets 360 reported that the WeTransfer service was unavailable on their networks. On checking the company’s incident status page, we found that the service was experiencing failures on downloads, uploads and other services. The issue is still not fixed and the company has announced that it is investigating this issue, via the status page.

We were unable to download a file shared with us, despite multiple download attempts. One team member said that it reached 99 percent on one attempt before it started again. After multiple retries, the download eventually failed. For some, the download began, but restarted after 4-5 seconds, despite multiple attempts.

There is no information on when we can expect the service to be operational again. WeTransfer is offered in two versions. The free version allows users to upload files of up to 2GB in size, while the Pro version enables transfer of up to 200GB of files or folders and offers 1TB of storage space, and the service lets users decide when transfers expire.

If you are among those who are experiencing this problem, you can use other file transfer services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, among other consumer cloud services, until the issue is resolved.

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on Twitter, Facebook, and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Samsung May Be Working on Dual Under Display Camera System for Improved Facial Recognition, Patent Suggests



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

WhatsApp May Let You Export Chat Backups From Google Drive in Future

WhatsApp is found to be working on an option to let users export their chat backups stored on Google Drive. The update would allow users to have their chat stored offline. The change has been reported to be in the works for Android users at this moment. Separately, WhatsApp has been spotted testing the ability to let its business users view the information of the device from where a message has been sent through their accounts. This will be useful for businesses given that they have multi-device support on WhatsApp — just like regular users.

According to a report by WhatsApp beta tracker WABetaInfo, the instant messaging app is working on the option to let users export their chat backups from Google Drive to the local storage of their devices. The backup is said to have full chat history, including messages, images, videos, and other media files.

WABetaInfo has shared a screenshot to give us a glimpse of the feature that is yet to be available even to beta testers. The screenshot shows that users would get an Export backup option in the Chat backup settings to let them move their backups from Google Drive.

WhatsApp is spotted working on an ‘Export backup’ option for Android users
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo

 

It is reported by the source that in addition to allowing users to export chat backups, WhatsApp would introduce an option to import backups on Google Drive.

Earlier this year, WABetaInfo reported that WhatsApp backups on Google Drive would get limited storage allocation. The new discovery in that scenario would allow users to import their chat backups if they reach the particular threshold on Google Drive and store their backed-up data offline on their device. Users may also be able to upload their chat backups back to Google Drive when they have adequate space available.

Exact details on when WhatsApp would enable the option to export backups from Google Drive are yet to be revealed. It is also unclear whether WhatsApp would prefer allowing iOS users to export their backups stored on iCloud in a similar fashion.

In addition to the export backups option, WhatsApp has started testing the ability for its business users to let them view device information about their outgoing messages if there are other linked devices accessing the same account.

WABetaInfo reports that the change has been rolled out through WhatsApp Business for Android beta version 2.22.13.10 and WhatsApp Business for iOS beta version 22.12.0.73. It is also said to be in testing for businesses accessing the app using a desktop.

A couple of screenshots shared by WABetaInfo show that users will be able to see the name of the linked device from where the message was sent in the chats thread.

WhatsApp is testing an ability to let business users see from where they’ve sent a message
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo

 

In the case of iOS, the screenshot suggests that users would see the word ‘Admin’ alongside the name of the device to indicate that the message was sent by a particular device.

The change is useful for businesses who are using the same account on multiple devices. It would allow them to track the device used for sending a particular message.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version