If you are on a limited data plan and always running out of data, you can make use of the tips as provided below to Reduce Cellular Data Usage on iPhone and make sure that you do not exceed the limits of your data plan.
Reduce Cellular Data Usage on iPhone
Most smartphone users are on Limited Data Plans and exceeding the data limit can be expensive.
Hence, it is necessary that you monitor cellular data usage on your iPhone and disable unnecessary Apps and services from using Cellular Data on your iPhone.
Once you get into the habit of monitoring data usage and take measures to prevent Cellular Data usage by unnecessary apps and services on your iPhone, you should be able to manage within the limits of your data plan.
You will find below various methods to reduce cellular data usage on iPhone.
1. Disable WiFi Assist
The WiFi Assist feature on iPhone is designed to automatically switch iPhone to Cellular Network, whenever the WiFi connection is weak.
However, this feature has been linked to excessive Cellular Data usage on iPhone. Hence, you are better off disabling WiFi Assist feature on your iPhone.
Tap on Settings > Cellular > scroll down to WiFi Assist and disable WiFi Assist on your iPhone by moving the toggle to OFF Position
2. Disable Cellular Data For App Downloads
Make sure that you disable Cellular Data for iTunes and App Store on your iPhone. This will prevent the possibility of Cellular data being used for App Downloads and Updates.
Tap on Settings > iTunes & App Store and toggle OFF Use Cellular Data option.
3. Disable Cellular Data For Unnecessary Apps
Since you are on a limited data plan, it is really important that you make use of the Free WiFi Network as much as possible and allow only the most essential Apps to use Cellular Data on your iPhone.
To prevent all unnecessary Apps from using Cellular data, tap on Settings > Cellular and toggle OFF all Social Media and other Apps that should not be using expensive Cellular data on your iPhone.
Make sure you go through all the Apps on this screen and allow only the most essential Apps to use Cellular Data on your iPhone.
4. Disable Cellular Data For Photos
Uploading Photos to iCloud Photo Library and sharing Photos with friends and relatives using iCloud Photo Sharing can lead to excessive data usage.
To rule out the possibility of mobile data being used to Upload or Share Photos, tap on Settings > Photos > Cellular Data.
On the Cellular Data screen, disable Cellular Data for Photos by moving the toggle to OFF position.
5. Turn Off Push Notifications For Messages App
In case you get a large number of message Notifications, you can cut down data usage on your iPhone by turning OFF Push notifications for the Messages App.
Tap on Settings > Notifications > Scroll down and tap on Messages.
On the Messages screen, scroll down to “Alerts” section and disable Banners.
6. Disable Cellular Data For Background App Refresh
Most social media Apps are known to remain active in the background, using up your expensive cellular data.
To prevent Apps from using Cellular data for Background App Refresh, tap on Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
On the Background App Refresh screen, tap on Background App Refresh and on the next screen, tap on Wi-Fi option.
After this Apps on your iPhone will only be allowed to use the WiFi network for Background App refresh.
7. Stop Fetching Emails Frequently
If your iPhone is set to fetch Emails, Contacts and Calendar frequently, you will quickly end up using a lot of Data on your iPhone.
Tap on Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Fetch New Data. On Fetch New Data screen, scroll down to Fetch section and tap on Manually Option.
With this setting, your iPhone will check for new emails only when you open the Mail App.
If you are not comfortable with the idea of Emails not being fetched automatically on your iPhone, you can still save data by choosing the Hourly option.
8. Turn Off Video Autoplay
As you must have observed, Videos start playing automatically as soon as you open Social Media or News Related websites on your iPhone.
In case you access such websites using Cellular data, make sure that Video Autoplay is turned OFF for all the websites that you visit using Cellular Data.
To turn off Video Autoplay, you will have to go to settings of the individual Apps and select “Never Autoplay Videos” or similar option.
In the case of Facebook, tap on the 3-line Menu icon, located at the bottom right corner of your screen.
Next, tap on Settings > Account Settings > Videos & Photos.
Next, tap on Autoplay and select Never Autoplay Videos option.
After this, you will no longer find Videos Automatically playing in Facebook.
