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Excessive mobile data usage on mobile phone iPhone Android smartphone

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It's happened again, you've got another bill from your telco.

It's telling you that your mobile data usage has exceeded the monthly quota and you have hardly done anything that you can think off that uses the internet apart from browse the odd web site, use Facebook or read the odd email.

This has happened a few times to several people I know, so I did some investigating.

Our telco is Vodafone. After explaining that I am in the tech industry and have several failover systems that connect devices to the internet (I have ADSL, Telstra cable and Vivid Wireless - due the fact that we provide remote support and cannot be without some sort of backup connection), I was able obtain logs of what these internet hogs were.

Unbeknownst to most of us, many apps run in the background and continuously upload our activities to the internet. And, some phones are set to update your apps when an update is available.

You may think you're taking a photo or shooting a video on your phone only, but some apps you may have, are happily chewing up your quota in the background and sending these photos and videos up to the cloud.

Unless you have specifically told the apps to use "WiFi only", they will use any internet connection, including cellular data, to upload to the cloud.

So what are these apps, and h how do you stop them?

For Android Devices.
Google+
Dropbox
Any file or photo sharing service e.g. Box, Instagram etc.

Go to the settings for these apps and look for either "SYNC" or "UPLOAD". Make sure you have it set to use WiFi to upload, DO NOT select "cellular data" or "any internet connection" as these will use your cellular data when a WiFi connection is not available.

Google+ took out 700MB in one sitting trying to upload photos and videos to Google storage. Make sure you do not have photo sync on, or if you want to have photo sync on, then to have it set to WiFi upload only.

Go to Settings
Look for Accounts
Look for Google
Select your associated Google account
Uncheck any uneeded items that do not need to be synced to your phone Expecially Google+ Photos

Also in settings - 

Set your Google+ Settings to use Wi-Fi only.


  • Scroll Down to Google+
  • Select Auto Backup
  • Check your Backup Settings for Photos and Videos and make sure it is set to only backup
  • "Only when there is a Wi-Fi connection available."




For iPhone or IOS devices
App store
Dropbox
Any file or photo sharing service e.g. Box, Instagram etc.

As per the Android devices, make sure your apps are not set to sync unless using WiFi only.

Also make sure your Apps do not update using Cellular Data.

Set Use Cellular Data to Off




  • Go to Settings
  • Look for iTunes & App Stores
  • Set Use Cellular Data to "Off"










I hope this will help you to keep your mobile data quota under control.

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