Four settings account for most of what a phone spends without being asked — change them before you fly and a small plan goes a long way
The Four That Matter
- Photo backup to Wi-Fi only. A day of holiday photos and video can be several gigabytes on its own, uploaded quietly in the background
- Stop video autoplaying. In every social app there is a setting for this — it is the largest use most people never notice
- Turn off automatic app and system updates over mobile data. One large update can take a week's plan
- Lower streaming quality. Standard definition uses a fraction of what high definition does, and on a phone screen the difference is small
Worth Doing Too
- Download maps, music and anything to read over Wi-Fi before you leave
- Turn off automatic media download in messaging apps, especially busy group chats
- Use the phone's own low-data mode — Low Data Mode on iPhone, Data Saver on Android
- Use Wi-Fi in hotels and cafés for the heavy things, and mobile data for the moving-around things
Navigation is far lighter than people assume — an hour of turn-by-turn directions costs less than a couple of minutes of video. There is no need to ration maps.
Check the per-app list on the phone after the first day. It shows exactly where the data went, and it is nearly always one app rather than general use — see How do I Check How Much Data I Have Left?
