Mobile apps, with their rich variety of features, offer smartphone users a delightful experience. These pieces of software are of a wide range of types, including gaming apps, photo editors, video editors, social media messengers, educational apps, music players, and others.
To get the best experience of most of these apps, you’d need to use Internet data. When you have many such apps on your device, the costs of buying data can quickly add up as the software saps your internet data.
One of the most effective ways to solve this problem is to restrict data usage for specific apps. In this post, we explain how to prevent any app from using mobile data on Android.
How to prevent any app from using mobile data on Android
Users who are looking for ways to reduce their Internet data usage often inquire, “Can I stop an app from using mobile data?” Below, we outline the steps to take to restrict background data on your Android:
- Open your phone menu and scroll down to Settings
- Launch the Settings app > Network & Internet > Data Usage
- On some phones or Android OS versions, the direction is Settings > SIM card and mobile network > Data settings & Data usage
- At the top of this page, the amount of data used will be displayed
- In some smartphone models or Android OS versions, the App data usage section is on this page with the app using most data for that day first on the list
- In others, you’ll need to tap App data usage to check the specific amount of data each app has recently used
- View the list, scrolling down if necessary, to detect the mobile app using the highest amount of data
- Typical apps that do this are YouTube, Chrome browser, Instagram, and Facebook
- When you find the software, tap on the app > mobile data & WiFi
- Turn off the usage of internet data in the background for that app by toggling off the Background data
In certain models running Android 10 and above, you can restrict mobile data for multiples much more easily:
- Go to Settings
- Tap SIM card and mobile network
- Scroll down and press Data settings & Data usage
- This opens the Data Manager page
- Here, tap on Data Saver > Unrestricted data
- You’ll see a list of all apps on your mobile device
- Toggle the bar to On to restrict data for any app on the list you want to reduce data usage for.
When your phone is in Data Saver mode, consider disallowing Unrestricted data usage if it’s on. Having explained these steps above, we hope we’ve provided a practical solution to your question, “How do I restrict an app from using data on Android?”
To restrict background data usage for all your apps, turn on Data Saver mode by swiping down the Home screen and tapping the Data Saver icon in the control panel.
How to turn off cellular data on Android for specific apps
Another effective tip on how to prevent any app from using mobile data on Android is to switch off cellular data for specific apps consuming a lot of data on your phone. The settings to achieve this objective vary from one smartphone model or Android version to the other.
Some devices don’t even allow this to be done. Here are the steps to turn off mobile data for specific apps if your device supports it:
- Head to Settings in your phone menu
- Select Wireless and networks > Data usage > Network access
- Go through the list of mobile apps and then clear the checkbox for any particular app(s) you want to disallow from using Internet data.
This technique will help you reduce and manage mobile data usage, thereby cutting down on your data subscription costs.
How to check which app is using data in the background
If you notice that your mobile data gets exhausted sooner than you expect, we recommend creating a data plan.
- Open the Settings app
- Press SIM card and mobile network
- On the next page, tap Data settings & Data usage
- This takes you to the Data Monitor section
- Click on SET DATA PLAN
- In the right section, fill in the appropriate information regarding how much data you want to use weekly, monthly, or for another specified number of days
- Select your preferences in the other parts of the page
- When you’re through, tap DONE
With this option, you can keep tabs on your data usage, prevent waste of mobile data unnecessarily by some apps, and reduce your data subscription costs.
Another effective tip on how to prevent any app from using mobile data on Android is to check the specific app using data in the background. This method also allows you to know apps using foreground data.
- Go to the phone menu and scroll down to Settings
- Open the Settings app > Network & Internet > Data Usage
- On some phone models and Android versions, the direction goes thus: Settings > SIM card and mobile network > Data settings & Data usage
- In certain smartphone models and Android OS versions, the App data usage section is on this page with the app using the most data on that day first on the list
- In others, you’ll need to tap App data usage to check the specific amount of data each app has recently used
- View the list, scrolling down if necessary, to detect the mobile app using the highest amount of data
Once you know the specific app using your mobile data, you can take the necessary steps to restrict the data usage using any of the techniques above.
Wrapping up
If you’re seeking tips on how to prevent any app from using mobile data on Android, then this post was written for you. The tutorial also covers related issues such as how to turn off data for specific apps, how to check the app using your Internet data, and others.
The comprehensive guide, which contains tested tips that work on most (if not all) smartphone models and brands, also lets you keep track of background running apps that could be using your data perniciously.
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