Cut down on mobile data usage with these easy steps

We can access the wealth of the world’s information from the palm of our hands … or just stream Netflix.

But if you do it away from a WiFi connection, it’ll cost you. 

Since mobile service carriers are companies that want to make money, they may charge you extra if you go over your monthly data limit, or throttle your service so badly you might as well not have coverage. 

Thankfully, there are solutions to this. Through a combination of fiddling with your phone’s settings and being a little smarter about how you use data, you can avoid going over your limit. 

Become acquainted with your data settings

The first step to fixing any problem is correctly diagnosing it. If your mobile data usage is extremely high, you need to figure out which apps are the culprits and act accordingly.

On iPhone, open the Settings app and tap on the Cellular section. Once there, you’ll get a detailed readout of how much data you’ve used in the current billing period and, more importantly, how much data each app has used. 

Things like YouTube, Spotify, and Twitter are examples of popular apps that can eat into your data allowance if you’re not careful. Go ahead and turn off data for these apps if you feel like that’s the way to go. On Android, the same information can be found in the Network & Internet area of the Settings app.

Aside from shutting off data on an app-by-app basis, there are other steps you can take to passively decrease data use. On both iOS and Android, you can tell your phone to stop automatically refreshing apps in the background while you’re away from WiFi networks. 

Background App Refresh can be found in the General area of the iOS Settings app. On Android, you can shut off background data usage in the same menu that shows how much data each app uses. Android users can also turn off Auto-Sync, which is explained in more detail here.

Reconsider using WiFi assist or Adaptive WiFi

Both Android and iOS have options that can make your mobile internet experience a lot smoother, but they can also eat up data. On iOS, it’s Wi-Fi Assist. On Android, it’s Adaptive Wi-Fi. Either way, it’s something you should consider turning off if you use too much data each month.

On iOS, go to the Cellular settings menu and scroll down past the list of apps and their individual data usage. The toggle for Wi-Fi Assist should be right there. Turn it off and your phone will no longer automatically switch to cellular data when the WiFi signal gets spotty.

You can also turn off iCloud Drive data usage while you’re at it. 

The same setting on Android phones can be found in the Connections area of the Settings app. Go to the WiFi settings, tap the three dots in the corner to find the advanced settings menu, and then turn off the toggle that says “Switch to mobile data.”

This might not make a massive dent in your data usage, but it could help. 

Streaming is cool, but have you tried downloading?

This may seem obvious, but it bears repeating: Download things on WiFi instead of streaming them with cellular data.

Of course, the app you’re using needs to support this. Spotify lets premium subscribers download music directly to their device. If you find yourself listening to an album frequently, just hit the download toggle on the album page in the Spotify app.

YouTube Premium also allows video downloads, if you happen to pay for that service. The same goes for Netflix; you can download films or shows on a WiFi network and watch them without eating up data while you’re on the go.

These are all just some of the ways you can cut back on data usage, of course. A good rule of thumb is to identify which apps use the most data and try to only use those apps when you’re connected to WiFi. You might just have to be a little more responsible when you’re out in the world, unfortunately.

It can be done, though. We believe in you.