- Google is adding more granular toggles to Android backups so you can control exactly what gets backed up
- However, the company is now counting everything in the backup against your Google account storage
- This change is rolling out now, starting with new Google accounts
Android backups are changing in two small but significant ways starting today (July 7) — and one of these changes will definitely be more popular than the other.
Let’s start with the good news: you now have much finer control over what actually gets backed up. Individual on/off toggles have been added for SMS & MMS messages, call history, and device settings. That means you can decide whether you really care about saving all of these items, so you can restore them if you ever set up a new phone.
More control is great. But there’s a catch — and it’s probably why Google made this change in the first place. All of these items will now also count toward your Google account storage.
The Storage Catch
Previously, when you backed up an Android phone, Google would only count photos and videos in Google Photos and MMS messages toward your account storage. Now, SMS messages, call history, and device settings are also being counted — meaning your backups will eat up more of your valuable cloud storage.
And that stings, because for free, Google only gives you 15GB — or as little as 5GB for new accounts that don’t register a phone number. That free allowance isn’t just for Android backups, either. It’s shared with Gmail and Google Drive, making it all too easy to run out of space even without SMS messages and the like counting against it.
So where you might have previously backed up SMS messages, call history, and device settings without a second thought, you might now need to be a bit more selective about what’s backed up — hence why these new toggles have been added (or at least, we suspect that’s the reason).
The good news? This change shouldn’t make a massive difference to how much storage your Android backups actually consume. A Google spokesperson told 9to5Google that “we expect this to only add 40MB on average.” Still, it all adds up — and it might push users toward paid storage plans sooner than they would have otherwise.
If you’re an existing Android user, you might not see these changes just yet. Google says they’re rolling out over the coming months. But new accounts should be subject to these restrictions — and benefit from the new toggles — immediately.
