What uses most data on android

How to Track Data Usage on Your Android Device

Avoid extra fees and extend your phone’s battery life

What to Know

• Go to Settings >Connections >Data usage >Mobile data usage and tap any app for usage info.
• Tap the toggle at Data usage >Data saver to turn it on.
• Or, try a third-party app, such as one offered by your carrier.

This article demonstrates how to track your data consumption and offers ways to cut down on your data usage without much inconvenience.

Instructions in this article apply to smartphones with Android 10, 9, 8, or 7, with minor variations among manufacturers.

How to Check Data Usage on Android

The instructions below should get you information about your data use.

Open the Settings app.

Tap Connections.

Tap Data usage.

Tap Mobile data usage.

The top of the screen displays your data usage for the current month (as determined by your billing cycle). Tap the date to see previous periods.

Scroll down and tap any app to find out how much data it uses and to control whether it can use mobile data, Wi-Fi, or both.

Go back to Data usage and tap Billing cycle to set the date when your plan resets the monthly billing cycle.

Go to Data usage > Data saver.

Tap the toggle to turn on Data Saver.

Depending on the carrier, phone manufacturer, and Android version, some phones may have additional options for checking data usage.

Third-Party Apps for Tracking Data Usage

There are also third-party apps for monitoring data usage. The four majors carriers offer apps (myAT&T, T-Mobile My Account, Sprint Zone, and My Verizon Mobile) that sync with your account.

Other popular data management apps include My Data Manager and Data Usage. Each app can set up limits and alerts, and My Data Manager tracks data usage in shared or family plans and across multiple devices. Data Usage tracks Wi-Fi usage and predicts when you might go over your data allotment based on daily use. You can set daily, weekly, and monthly data limits too.

Tips for Reducing Data Usage

If your plan has a data limit, upgrading it is not the only way to control overages. Here are a few strategies:

• Most carriers offer shared plans, so team up with your partner, a trusted friend, or family members to save some money.
• Go to the data usage section of the smartphone settings to restrict background data on apps, either one by one or all at once. This way, apps don’t consume data when you’re not using the phone, although it may affect how they work.
• Use Wi-Fi rather than mobile data whenever possible, such as when you’re at home or work.

Beware of unsecured Wi-Fi networks, such as those at coffee shops and other public locations where your privacy could be compromised. If you use public Wi-Fi, consider investing in a hotspot device.

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What is background data and how to restrict background data in Android

Reduce mobile data in Android and save money

Understanding and taking control of the way your phone uses mobile data is the best way to save a few bucks on our phone bills. When we’re using our phones away from Wi-Fi, scrolling through our various media feeds, getting directions, streaming music etc, we understand that we’re using mobile data. How our phones use mobile data when we’re not actively looking at the screen, though, can be a bit of a mystery. Taking control and restricting background data in Android is a great way to take the power back and take control of how much mobile data your phone uses.

It’s worth knowing that despite your best efforts, some apps continue to use data in the background even while you don’t have them open. There are many Android apps that, without your knowledge, will go ahead and connect to your cellular network even when the app is closed.

Background data usage can burn through a fair bit of mobile data. The good news is, you can reduce data usage. All you have to do is turn off background data. We’ll show you how to restrict background data on your Android phone and cut any lingering data usage.

When you control your data usage, you’re free to stop overpaying and choose a plan that gives you the data you need. If that’s your goal, Ting Mobile is the perfect carrier.

What is background data?

Basically, background data means that an app is using data even when you’re not actively using the app. Sometimes called background syncing, background data can keep your apps updated with the latest notifications like status updates, Snapchat stories and Tweets.

What uses data on my phone?

Here’s the deal: pretty much any time you’re online and you’re not using Wi-Fi, you’re using mobile data.

Mobile data is different from Wi-Fi. While Wi-Fi is a limited range network and data you use while connected to it won’t count towards your phone bill, mobile data uses the same network as the cell towers that let you make calls. You can use mobile data as long as you have cellular coverage and it counts towards your phone plan’s data use.

Mobile data is reserved for the stuff of the Internet: surfing, social media, email, watching video and more. Check out our complete guide on mobile data to learn more.

What about foreground data?

There are two main types of data usage. Background data and foreground data. Foreground data means you’re actively using data in an app, you’re sending a tweet, you’re watching a Snapchat or you’re streaming a video.

Background data, on the other hand, refers to data that the app uses when you’re not actively doing anything with the app.

Does background app refresh use data?

Apps refresh in the background to regularly check for notifications. This means, when you get an email, message or Tweet, it’s delivered right to your device, whether you’re on Wi-Fi or mobile data. So yes, if you’re not on Wi-Fi, it will use mobile data.

What does restrict background data mean?

It’s pretty simple. Restricting background data means reducing your background data to a bare minimum. When you turn off an app’s ability to run in the background, you get one step closer to cutting your data use altogether and controlling your phone bill.

How to stop apps from running in the background

Now that we’ve answered the question “what is background data,” let’s learn how to use less of it. The Data usage section in Android Settings lets you view the amount of data used by each specific app. If you notice an app using more background mobile data than you’d like it to (Snapchat comes to mind), you can restrict it from accessing the Internet till you’re back in a Wi-Fi covered area. If you’re looking to conserve your bandwidth and lower that monthly phone bill, this feature is definitely worth checking out. Remember, since this will prevent background refreshes, you’ll need to open the app to receive notifications.

Step 1

Open Settings, tap Network and internet, Data usage then App data usage. In Android 11, open Settings, tap Network and internet, Mobile network, Data usage (on some phones) then App data usage.

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Step 2

Scroll down to view a list of your Android apps sorted by data usage. Keep an eye out for the heaviest data users.

Step 3

When you see an app whose background data you want to restrict, tap on it and then turn the Background data toggle to the off position.

The usual suspects

Most popular apps will default to running in the background. Background data can be used even when your device is in standby mode (with the screen turned off), as these apps are constantly checking their servers through the Internet for all sorts of updates and notifications.

Make sure to take a look at Spotify, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat. All these apps can run in the background if you don’t disable their ability to do so.

For more info, check out Google’s Optimize data usage help article and our own article on how to reduce mobile data usage. Looking to save data on your iPhone? Here’s how to control which apps use your cellular data.

Find this tip useful? Have anything to add? Share what you think in the comments below.

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Data and file storage overview

Android uses a file system that’s similar to disk-based file systems on other platforms. The system provides several options for you to save your app data:

• App-specific storage: Store files that are meant for your app’s use only, either in dedicated directories within an internal storage volume or different dedicated directories within external storage. Use the directories within internal storage to save sensitive information that other apps shouldn’t access.
• Shared storage: Store files that your app intends to share with other apps, including media, documents, and other files.
• Preferences: Store private, primitive data in key-value pairs.
• Databases: Store structured data in a private database using the Room persistence library.

The characteristics of these options are summarized in the following table:

Type of content	Access method	Permissions needed	Can other apps access?	Files removed on app uninstall?
App-specific files	Files meant for your app’s use only	From internal storage, getFilesDir() or getCacheDir() From external storage, getExternalFilesDir() or getExternalCacheDir()	Never needed for internal storage Not needed for external storage when your app is used on devices that run Android 4.4 (API level 19) or higher	No	Yes
Media	Shareable media files (images, audio files, videos)	MediaStore API	READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE when accessing other apps’ files on Android 11 (API level 30) or higher READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE or WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE when accessing other apps’ files on Android 10 (API level 29) Permissions are required for all files on Android 9 (API level 28) or lower	Yes, though the other app needs the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission	No
Documents and other files	Other types of shareable content, including downloaded files	Storage Access Framework	None	Yes, through the system file picker	No
App preferences	Key-value pairs	Jetpack Preferences library	None	No	Yes
Database	Structured data	Room persistence library	None	No	Yes

The solution you choose depends on your specific needs:

How much space does your data require? Internal storage has limited space for app-specific data. Use other types of storage if you need to save a substantial amount of data. How reliable does data access need to be? If your app’s basic functionality requires certain data, such as when your app is starting up, place the data within internal storage directory or a database. App-specific files that are stored in external storage aren’t always accessible because some devices allow users to remove a physical device that corresponds to external storage. What kind of data do you need to store? If you have data that’s only meaningful for your app, use app-specific storage. For shareable media content, use shared storage so that other apps can access the content. For structured data, use either preferences (for key-value data) or a database (for data that contains more than 2 columns). Should the data be private to your app? When storing sensitive data—data that shouldn’t be accessible from any other app—use internal storage, preferences, or a database. Internal storage has the added benefit of the data being hidden from users.

Categories of storage locations

Android provides two types of physical storage locations: internal storage and external storage. On most devices, internal storage is smaller than external storage. However, internal storage is always available on all devices, making it a more reliable place to put data on which your app depends.

Removable volumes, such as an SD card, appear in the file system as part of external storage. Android represents these devices using a path, such as /sdcard .

Apps themselves are stored within internal storage by default. If your APK size is very large, however, you can indicate a preference within your app’s manifest file to install your app on external storage instead:

Permissions and access to external storage

On earlier versions of Android, apps needed to declare the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission to access any file outside the app-specific directories on external storage. Also, apps needed to declare the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission to write to any file outside the app-specific directory.

More recent versions of Android rely more on a file’s purpose than its location for determining an app’s ability to access, and write to, a given file. In particular, if your app targets Android 11 (API level 30) or higher, the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission doesn’t have any effect on your app’s access to storage. This purpose-based storage model improves user privacy because apps are given access only to the areas of the device’s file system that they actually use.

Android 11 introduces the MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission, which provides write access to files outside the app-specific directory and MediaStore . To learn more about this permission, and why most apps don’t need to declare it to fulfill their use cases, see the guide on how to manage all files on a storage device.

Scoped storage

To give users more control over their files and to limit file clutter, apps that target Android 10 (API level 29) and higher are given scoped access into external storage, or scoped storage, by default. Such apps have access only to the app-specific directory on external storage, as well as specific types of media that the app has created.

Use scoped storage unless your app needs access to a file that’s stored outside of an app-specific directory and outside of a directory that the MediaStore APIs can access. If you store app-specific files on external storage, you can make it easier to adopt scoped storage by placing these files in an app-specific directory on external storage. That way, your app maintains access to these files when scoped storage is enabled.

To prepare your app for scoped storage, view the storage use cases and best practices guide. If your app has another use case that isn’t covered by scoped storage, file a feature request. You can temporarily opt-out of using scoped storage.

View files on a device

To view the files stored on a device, use Android Studio’s Device File Explorer.

Additional resources

For more information about data storage, consult the following resources.

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