Google Will Now Count All Android Backup Data Toward Your Storage Cap

ZikG/Shutterstock

This week will see a shift in the calculations Google uses for account storage. Beginning July 7, all data in your Android backups will count toward the storage limit on your Google account. Under the company’s previous approach to backups, only media uploaded to Google Photos and photos or videos within MMS data were counted against that storage cap. This rule will apply right away to new Android users, while current users will see the change roll out in the coming months.

“Android backup lets you save the data on your phone to your Google Account so you can easily restore it or set up a new device,” a spokesperson from the company told Engadget. “We’ve updated our policy so that all Android backup data now counts toward Google Account storage. We expect this to only add 40MB on average. We’re also giving you more transparency and new controls that let you select which data and apps you want to back up.”

Those controls will be accessible under the hardware’s backups menu. You can skip device settings, call history, or SMS and MMS messages from the backup process alongside the usual toggles for whether individual app data is included. 

This is the latest adjustment to Google’s policies around storage. In May, the company began testing a reduced default free storage limit for new accounts, cutting the max from 15GB to 5GB unless the user linked their phone number.