Managing your app settings

You don’t want to stop using your favourite apps to save on data usage – and, fortunately, you won’t have to.

Here are some examples of popular apps, and how to adjust their settings to manage how much of your data they use – ideal if you’re running low on data, or just want to avoid running low.

Girl in car with phone in front of face  
Girl in car with phone in front of face

Facebook

You can save data by turning the video auto-play feature off, meaning videos won’t play automatically as you scroll through your newsfeed.

Go to Settings, then Account settings and Videos and photos.

You may also choose to switch Upload HD off if you like to upload a lot of videos.

Two girls taking selfie in field

Snapchat

In Settings under Manage, you can switch on Travel mode. This stops videos from automatically downloading if you use Snapchat a lot.

Two girls taking selfie in field
Man on train  
Man on train

Spotify

If you like to listen to Spotify on the go you can download playlists over Wi-Fi and listen to them in ‘offline mode’.

Go to Your library, followed by Settings and Playback to switch to offline.

Streaming quality also affects data usage – and you can switch to standard quality which uses less data.

Go to Your library, followed by Settings and Streaming quality. You can also adjust download quality and opt out of Download Using Cellular here.

Four girls taking selfie outside

Instagram

You can choose not to have Instagram preload videos over your mobile connection, reducing data usage on videos you don’t want to watch.

Go to your profile and tap the settings icon in the top right corner. Next, choose Mobile Data Use and toggle the Use Less Data option to On.

This won’t change the way Instagram works when you’re on Wi-Fi.

Four girls taking selfie outside
Man on phone tower bridge London  
Man on phone tower bridge London

Twitter

Switching off the auto-play videos feature is the best way to manage your data usage on Twitter.

Go to Settings, then choose Data. From here choose Video auto-play and set it to Never play videos automatically.

On the Data screen you can also switch off high-quality video playback on a data connection (making it Wi-Fi only), and prevent images from pre-loading by unticking that box.

Girl with VR headset

YouTube

Streaming videos is always going to use data, but there are ways to use less of it by reducing the quality of the videos you watch.

Go to the menu then choose Quality and switch to the lowest option available (this may vary on different operating systems). These settings will stay in place on Android, but will need to be adjusted each time you use the Apple app.

You can also restrict HD streaming to Wi-Fi only connections.

Android users go to Settings, then General, then Limit mobile data usage.

Apple users go to Settings, then toggle the Play HD on Wi-Fi only option to On.

Girl with VR headset
Girl on tablet in red light bar  
Girl on tablet in red light bar

NOW TV

You can adjust your settings so that you only stream over Wi-Fi, rather than using data.

In the menu, select My account followed by Playback and toggle the Wi-Fi only option to On.