Facebook-owned WhatsApp has recently announced that, starting on November 12, 2018, Android users will be able to store their WhatsApp backups on Google Drive without the backup being counted toward Google Drive’s storage quota.

WhatsApp has warned users that media and messages backed up in Google Drive do not benefit from the chat app’s usual end-to-end encryption. That should give users pause before backing up their photos, videos and text conversations because that data could be susceptible if hackers gain control of a Google Drive account.

WhatsApp has long allowed people to store their messages in Google Drive, but they counted towards users’ Google Drive storage limit.

Users who take advantage of the option have to have a Google account activated on their phone and Google Play services installed on it.

“You can back up your chats and media to Google Drive, so if you change Android phones or get a new one, your chats and media are transferrable,” the company explains in its FAQ document.

“Media and messages you back up aren’t protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in Google Drive,” the firm says.

In the absence of this end-to-end encryption on Google Drive, users should ensure their Google accounts are protected by watertight passwords and two-factor authentication.

It’s not just Android users whose backups are threatened by the lack of encryption. iOS users are also informed that iCloud backups are not protected by the end-to-end protection.

Beyond the lack of end-to-end encryption, the liberation from Google Drive storage is a pretty decent deal for OneDrive users. Those videos and images are heavily compressed, but over the course of time they can still take up a fair share of cloud storage space.