Back in April, it came to light that WhatsApp was developing a feature enabling Android users to back up their WhatsApp chats in their own encrypted cloud storage. Now, it has emerged that the company is also testing this functionality on iOS.
Currently, Android users can store backups of their chats in Google Drive, while iOS users rely on iCloud. This new feature allows both Android and iOS users to choose between Google Drive/iCloud and WhatsApp’s own cloud storage, which provides 2 GB of free space.
Nevertheless, WhatsApp is also exploring the introduction of paid storage options. Reports suggest that a plan offering 50 GB of cloud storage would cost $1 per month.
WhatsApp users who back up their chats to the encrypted cloud storage will be able to secure their backups with a password or a 64-digit encryption key. However, it is important to note that chats backed up in WhatsApp’s cloud storage will be end-to-end encrypted by default. The only way to disable this encryption is to revert to Google Drive (on Android) or iCloud (on iOS), as encryption for these cloud services is currently optional.
WhatsApp is still working on the encrypted cloud storage feature for both Android and iOS, and it remains unclear when exactly it will be rolled out to all users.
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