Applications increase in size every day. The quality of the video also does – and quality goes hand in hand with a need for MBs. Also, you tend to use your mobile phone more and more. However, your data capacity remains the same. And so you run out of data more often than you’d like to admit. So what can you do? How can you decrease data usage and save more data?
Way #1: Optimize Wi-Fi settings
Many Android apps consume data even when your device is in sleep mode. But there is something you can do about it. In the Wi-Fi settings, in the advanced section, there is an option to turn off Wi-Fi during sleep, as shown below.
Set the function from Always to Never. What this will do in practice is to keep Wi-Fi off during sleep mode. Whenever you actually need your phone and wake it up, however, Wi-Fi will turn on. Data usage aside, this option will also help you focus on work and things you should be doing, as you will stop receiving emails and notifications when your phone is not in use.
In addition, keeping Wi-Fi off during sleep will help you save some battery along the way.
Way #2: Replace default apps with Lite apps
As you probably know, ‘lite’ used as an adjective indicates the lighter version of an original service or product. In our case, a Lite app is usually less demanding in storage, memory and processing from its original version. Installing a Lite app is one of the best ways to decrease data usage. It’s very easy to find all lite versions in the Google Play store.
In particular, Facebook is hands down one of the biggest consumers of data on all Android systems. Not to mention its high battery and resource uses. As howtogreek.com states:
“Facebook’s main app weighs in at 57 MB; Facebook Lite is a mere 1.59 MB—that’s about 96.5% less space. Facebook Lite is designed to use less RAM and CPU power, as well, so you’ll get a smoother experience on cheaper and less powerful phones.
Therefore, what you can do is start with the Facebook app and then move on with the rest data-hungry apps. And if you find an app in the list that you don’t use much and it’s eating a lot of data, then you know what to do.”
Way #3: Install Samsung Max
Samsung Max was developed and released last year by Samsung. It’s a unique Android app which offers mobile data saving mode and privacy protection.
Samsung Max is free and sits on all the other apps on your device. Its primary function is to help you reduce the amount of data consumed by each app. It works similarly to the data compression feature that you may know from Chrome, except it works on all apps on your device. Samsung Max is pretty light and you won’t even notice it running in the background. Whether you’re playing a game, browsing the internet, or watching a video on YouTube or Netflix, it will compress and optimize the data, and decrease data usage, without affecting the user experience. It also compresses web pages and saves data on almost every single app on a device that uses the Internet.
As it’s stated in the official release notes by Samsung:
“Data Saving Mode makes your data plan work harder and go further. In some cases, it can even be used to help you save money on your mobile data plan over time. The feature offers smart advice on which applications are consuming the most data, and constantly scans for data saving opportunities. When possible, it can even actively compress images, videos, music files, and webpages in your apps and browser. Users can also manage data permissions for specific apps and enjoy peace of mind with automatic background data usage blocked for all apps, tailoring data consumption to meet each user’s needs.”
Way #4: Selective updates
A certain way to waste a few GB’s of data every month is having automatic updates turned on and allowing updates from Mobile Networks. This can be especially useful when you’re on a trip, your data is limited, and you’d rather spend them on a travel app.
Auto-update can eat up a huge chunk of data every month which can go all the way up to a couple of gigabytes of data each time you update the apps. The number can be that big because every time Android updates an app what it actually does is reinstalling it. As you can imagine, that means a lot of MB for every app every time. To decrease data usage, be more selective with your updates.
Way #5: Every little counts
Last but not least, there are some small things you can do to decrease data usage overall:
- Disable notifications on apps that don’t require notifications (most of them don’t)
- Turn on data compression on Chrome
- Manually decrease the video quality on the YouTube app
- Set a data limit every month so that you don’t exceed your initial plan