Nowadays, many carriers offer unlimited data because of the increasing needs of people to go online. However, not many people choose an unlimited plan. Some of them can go into a bundled plan with data limits. They can go overboard their limit if there are automatic downloads, international roaming, and background data that is eating your internet plan.
This article aims to reduce your data usage on your iPhone to save on cellular data. There are a lot of ways that your data is being used without you being aware of them. Note that this article mostly applies to iPhones that have the iOS 12 updates.
How to Control Data Usage on your iPhone
The following are suggestions and tips that you can do in order to reduce your cellular data usage. If you follow these tips, you can mostly use the data from your Wi-Fi at home or on your local coffee shops.
1. Enabling and Disabling Cellular Data – There are two common ways to access the internet. The first one is through Wi-Fi and the second one is through cellular data. It is important to note that some of the time when you are using your Wi-Fi, you are also using your cellular data package if your cellular data is turned on.
You can turn off and turn on cellular data on your iPhone by going into the Settings. Next, tap cellular. You can toggle the button on and off depending on whether you need data or not. There are other options in the Settings that you can explore. There is a section in the Cellular Data that lets you see how much data were consumed for a specific period of time. You can refresh this by scrolling down the Cellular Data settings, and through tapping the Reset Statistics button.
• When you go into the Cellular Data Option, you can see the other two options when you turn it on. You can see “Voice & Data” and “Data Roaming”. When you turn on the “Voice and Data” option, you will be able to use the voice calling feature over an LTE network. When you only choose to turn on the “data” option, you will be able to use the data without the calling feature over an LTE network.
• Data roaming should not be in use if you are not in another country.
2. Check you’re the usage of your data. Many users are not aware that some of their phone applications are using cellular data. The good news is that you can limit this. You can go to your phone’s “Settings”, then tap on to “Cellular” and go to the “Cellular Data” option. You will be able to see which apps are consuming large chunks of data. If you do not allow cellular data usage on some of the apps, they may stop working. However, you can still make them work over a Wi-Fi connection.
Apps Where You Can Control Cellular Data
• Photos. Your “Photos” app may use cellular data when it automatically updates. You can limit this by going into the Settings, then tapping Photos. If you see a cellular data option, toggle this off. There’s also an option where you can have unlimited data updates enabled if you prefer.
• TV App – This app lets you watch a lot of videos from many sources. However, when it comes to the “Playback” button, this app may use cellular data without you knowing it. You can toggle off cellular data on the TV app by going into the “Settings”. Toggle off the cellular data and you are done.
Background Data Restrictions
Your background apps may be one of the biggest data consumers in your phone. If you enable this, it will simply refresh all the running apps that need an internet connection. A new app may continue running in the background if it refreshes every minute. You can disable this feature by tapping on your phone’s “Settings”. Next, go to “General”, and then tap on the “Background App Refresh”. Toggle off the cellular data and you are good to go. You can also save a lot of battery life if you toggle the background app refresh off.
Toggle Off Wi-Fi Assist – Wi-Fi Assist means that your iPhone will still consume cellular data even if it is connected to a Wi-Fi network. You can go to the “Settings”, tap “Cellular”, and scroll down a bit. You can toggle off “Wi-Fi Assist” when you see it.
iCloud Drive – This is a cloud-based app that manages your documents online. The iCloud Drive can update all your devices if you have uploaded a new file on your iCloud account. The good news is that you can prevent the iCloud Drive from using your cellular data if you are connected to the Wi-Fi. You can go to your iPhone’s Settings, go to Cellular, and simply turn off the iCloud Drive option.
Automatic Downloads and Updates – Apps can automatically download updates and purchases if you allow them to. You can limit this by going into the “Settings”, then tapping the “iTunes and App Store”. Just simply toggle off the button that shows “Use Cellular Data”. If you want to download purchases such as music, books, and games using your cellular data, you can simply go back to this option and toggle it on.
Reading List
Safari Reading List can also use cellular data without your knowledge. With Safari reading list, you can go ahead and set everything up for offline reading in case you don’t have any internet available. To do this, you can go to the iPhone’s Settings, choose “Safari” then toggle off the option that shows “Automatically Save Offline.” You can also turn off the video automatic players in Safari if you want to save more data.
Mail – This is not really a recommended step. However, if you can check your mail on your computer or if you don’t want to get emails every second of the day, you can limit you’re the way your iPhone’s fetch mail feature. In order to do this, you can simply go to the Settings, then tap on Mail, and toggle off the Cellular Data. You can also get your emails in a less frequent manner. You can simply go to your iPhone’s Settings, then go to the Passwords and Accounts Section. Finally, you can tap on the Fetch New Data section.
If you follow the above steps, you will be able to save cellular data. If you are on a plan, you will never go over it and you can save money in the long run.
