Smartphone users who rely on mobile internet plans consume data even when they’re not using their phones. Due to this common problem, users often see notifications from their carriers reminding them of their remaining data packages. According to a report by Mediarun Search UK, this is due to live news and information updates and apps running in the background.
The report also mentions that users can set up alerts to check for certain activities that could drain packets. These include – restricting browser searches, broadcasts and media updates.
However, this unnecessary data usage can be stopped by preventing WhatsApp from refreshing data while it is running in the background. There are some solutions that users can apply to reduce WhatsApp data usage in their daily life, not only to use WhatsApp calls, but also to focus on conversations in the app to avoid opening it multiple times to view the same conversation reading.
Apart from that, users can also turn off the internet connection only from Meta’s own direct messaging app by following the step-by-step guide mentioned here. Both Android and iPhone users can disable this feature to avoid wasting background data.
- Go to settings
- Tap Connect/Connect and Share (Xiaomi)/Cellular (OnePlus)
- Select the “Data usage” option to open a list of apps that use data in the background
- Click on the “WhatsApp” option in this list.
- Uncheck “Allow background data usage” to disable the feature
- Go to settings
- Click on the phone
- Drag the slider and select the “Cellular Data” option
- Uncheck the option called WhatsApp
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Users can also follow the same steps to prevent other apps from dumping data in the background. This should work for apps that typically send lots of notifications and spend inflated data. Additionally, reports suggest disabling this feature can also save battery consumption