Google One offers free phone backup, new storage manager

Google One, Google’s subscription service that offers expanded storage among other things, is trying to get more Google users on-board. They’re now offering a free phone backup feature for Android (and even iOS) users although there’s a caveat that is meant to entice you to upgrade and subscribe to one of their plans. They’re also now offering a new storage manager to help users easily see how much storage they’re using across Google products.

Google One subscribers already have phone backup since last year as they are able to store texts, contacts, apps, photos, and videos from their smartphones onto Google’s cloud. But now they are offering this automatic phone backup even if you don’t have a Google One subscription. The catch is that it will count against your free 15GB of storage on your Google account. That 15GB is across all of the Google services you use.

So if you’re deep into the Google ecosystem, that 15GB is not a lot especially if you use Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive, etc. So if you want your backup to be seamless, you can of course go for a Google One subscription. The plan starts at $1.99 per month for 100GB of storage and the price, of course, goes up the higher storage you would need. But if you think the free 15GB is already okay, then you can now use your free automatic phone backup.

The Google One app is also now getting a new storage manager to make it easier to see how much space you have left, what is taking up space in your cloud, and also helping you free up space by deleting files you don’t need. And while this storage manager is free, they’re also encouraging you to subscribe to their various tiers of course, if you need more space and you can’t delete anymore.

Again, if you use Google apps heavily for your work and your personal life, it would be useful to have a Google One membership if you can spare a few extra bucks every month. Aside from the expanded storage, you also get things like premium support, member benefits, and even family sharing.

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