from Hacker News

Due to a new agreement between WhatsApp and Google, WhatsApp backups will no longer count against Google Drive storage quota. However, any WhatsApp backups that have not been updated in more than a year will automatically be removed from storage.

This policy will come into effect for all users on 12 November 2018, although some users may see the quota benefits earlier. To avoid the loss of any backups, we recommend that people manually back up WhatsApp before 12 November 2018.

Recommended Actions 1. Confirm that your current Android WhatsApp client is backed up

2. If you would like to refresh any existing backups, please manually back up your WhatsApp client before 30 October 2018

The Google Drive team