If you don’t have an unlimited data plan, your mobile data is a precious resource, and using too much of it on any given month can cost you. If you’ve noticed that your iPhone seems to be eating way too much data for your liking, there are a few easy things you can do to cut down on the consumption.
1 Turn on Low Data Mode
There’s an easy setting you can turn on for your iPhone called “Low Data Mode.” This is the first thing you should do if you need to cut back on data usage, as the mode automatically restricts network use and disables several data-hungry features used by both apps and iOS itself.
Activating this mode is as simple as going to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options. There are only a few options here, one of which is Low Data Mode. Turn it on, and it will save you data by disabling things such as automatic updates, background tasks, photo syncing, and more. Just don’t forget to turn it back on later since those functions are pretty useful in most circumstances.
2 Don’t Stream Videos, Or Stream Them at Lower Resolutions
One of the most data-hungry things you can do is stream videos. Especially these days, where you can stream videos in exceptionally high quality. If you want to save data on your iPhone, you’ll need to cut the content and stop streaming videos when you aren’t connected to Wi-Fi.
If you absolutely must stream a video for some reason, be sure to do so at a lower video resolution. It takes more data to stream a video at 720p than it does at 240p. The video may not look great, but that’s a sacrifice you have to make in the name of saving data. The lower you are willing to have the resolution while streaming a video, the less data it will cost you.
3 Stream Music From Apps at a Lower Quality
Streaming music isn’t quite as data-intensive as streaming videos, but it’s still a big sink, especially if you’re an audiophile. Ideally, you should have your favorite jams downloaded directly to your iPhone so you can listen to them at their highest quality without any data concerns.
But if you’re intent on streaming music while disconnected from Wi-Fi, you can try streaming at a lower quality, just like a video. How exactly you do this depends on the app you use to stream music. With Spotify, you can tap the setting icon at the top right and turn on the “Data Saver” option.
If you’re using Apple Music, you’ll want to go into your Settings app, then Music > Audio Quality > Cellular Streaming, and enable the “High Efficiency” option. Or you can select “None,” which will disable streaming via mobile data entirely. That would save you the most data, for sure.
4 Turn Off the Wi-Fi Assist Feature
Wi-Fi Assist is a setting for your iPhone that will make it automatically switch to cellular data if the Wi-Fi speed is bad enough. If this setting is on, your iPhone could be eating up cellular data even while you are technically connected to Wi-Fi without you ever knowing about it.
Fixing this is as simple as turning the setting off. Just go to Settings > Cellular and scroll all the way to the bottom of that menu. There, you’ll see the “Wi-Fi Assist” option to enable or disable at your leisure. This setting is useful if you have urgent things to attend to on your iPhone while out and about, so don’t forget to turn it back on later if it makes sense to do so.
This is a hard one, I know. We all like to stay up-to-date with our friends, even while on the move. But social media apps really are huge data eaters. Just think about all of the videos, GIFs, images, and other media that get thrown around on social media. It takes data to present all of those things to you when you aren’t connected to Wi-Fi.
Ideally, you should just stay off of social media entirely to protect your limited data plan. But if you’re determined to check your social media even while relying on your data, there are still some things you can do to make it less taxing. Most social media apps these days have an autoplay feature where they will automatically play videos in your feed.
As mentioned earlier, playing videos when you aren’t connected to Wi-Fi is bad for your data, and you can’t avoid this by just not scrolling down to the videos. The app downloads the clip before you ever get to it so it can autoplay as soon as you do. To get rid of this huge data sink, go into your social media settings and disable the autoplay feature.
6 Compress Your Text Message Attachments
Some people send a lot more pictures over text to their friends than others. If you can’t help but send your newest selfie to everyone on your contacts while out and about, consider compressing those images before you send them. It costs data to send text messages, and that cost increases when you send attachments.
You can set your iPhone to compress image attachments automatically. Open your Settings, then go to Messages. From here, just scroll down until you see “Low Quality Image Mode.” Enable that, and any images you send over iMessage will be a smaller size, and thus take less data to send.
Of course, if you send attachments via other methods, like Mail, Whatsapp, or Telegram, those attachments will take data to send as well. Compressing the attachments you send through those platforms will also save you data, though there’s no easy setting to activate that will let you do that automatically. You’d have to compress those attachments manually.
Ideally, you’d compress everything you send if you’re trying to save your data, but if you have to pick just one thing to compress, focus on videos. Those are usually much larger files than images and PDFs, so they cost you the most data to send and are the most worth compressing.
There are far more things you could do to save a bit of data while using your iPhone, but I can’t quite list them all here. Ultimately, the best way to save data is to use your iPhone as little as possible while out and about. Just remember to turn off any sort of automatic app functions, and you should see minimal data usage on your device.
