topic Excessive data usage in iOS (iPhone, iPad)

Excessive data usage

Npostman — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 02:01:13 GMT

I went out for less than 10 minutes and listened to songs I had downloaded to my phone and Spotify used 233 Mb of data. What’s going on here?

Re: Excessive data usage

davewarfel — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 02:15:43 GMT

I wish I knew, but I just wanted to say the same thing happened to me. Just started today.

I have premium and have downloaded all the songs I was listening to. But Spotify used up 400mb of data.

Would love to find out what's going on before all my data is gonezo.

Re: Excessive data usage

lod_rolfious — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 02:21:53 GMT

Same here! I uninstalled, reinstalled. 24 mb used just by opening the app

Re: Excessive data usage

lod_rolfious — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 02:38:07 GMT

after 10 seconds of streaming. App set to data saver

Re: Excessive data usage

Npostman — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 12:31:49 GMT

So it had happened to at least 4 of us. How can we get Spotify to respond? I paid 30 dollars in overage data yesterday because of this.

Re: Excessive data usage

lod_rolfious — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 12:36:41 GMT

I asked my colleague to check his Spotify app too last night. 30 secs of streaming and just running in the background for a few minutes. 100 mb used! This seems common. Is the reason why people havent noticed yet that its the start of the month and most people have fresh new monthly caps?

Re: Excessive data usage

Npostman — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 14:24:42 GMT

220 MB in 35 minutes. That’s better than yesterday but still bad.

Re: Excessive data usage

lod_rolfious — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 23:28:06 GMT

Seems it might be related to Spotify wrapped. My «video» kept «buffering» and never going full green circle. Seems it has continously loaded data there. Im not 100% sure yet, but I did some tests now, after trying to click myself out of the whole wrapped thing. Data usage is waaaaaay down

Re: Excessive data usage

davewarfel — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 05:22:18 GMT

👆 That makes sense, as the wrapped stuff came out around the same time this started, but I never opened wrapped on my phone. I haven't looked at it once. I was just shuffling songs from my "Liked Songs" playlist, which I've had downloaded for many months, and confirmed was still downloaded when the data usage occurred.

Re: Excessive data usage

Npostman — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 11:59:44 GMT

I also was not using wrapped at the time. I was listening to downloaded songs. If it is related to wrapped I think that’s pretty unacceptable from Spotify and I think we deserve some compensation for the overage fees.

Re: Excessive data usage

CarlosE — Sun, 05 Dec 2021 15:25:31 GMT

Hey folks,

Thanks for your posts.

We rolled out a fix for this and you should be seeing improvements already.

Cheers!

Re: Excessive data usage

Anselade — Thu, 26 May 2022 23:31:35 GMT

Used 16GB of sat on spotify this month. wth? Cost me extra $50. Listening to podcasts 40 min each way to work.

Re: Excessive data usage

user-removed — Sat, 28 May 2022 15:08:33 GMT

I have been experiencing this issue for the past year, doesn't seem as though any update has fixed it. I am on the Android beta build.

Re: Excessive data usage

OscarDC — Sat, 28 May 2022 19:52:54 GMT

Hey folks,

Thanks for posting about this here in the Community!

We understand where you're coming from. However, the high data usage could be related to different factors. First, if you’re a Premium subscriber, we’d recommend downloading the content you want to listen to without using your mobile data by activating the Offline mode in your Settings. This way, the data traffic will be deactivated and will not consume your phone's data.

You can reduce the data usage by toggling on Data Saver from the app's settings on your mobile device. To find out how you can do this, along with other tips, we'd recommend taking a look at this support site article.

Lastly, keep in mind that the higher the stream quality, the more data will be used. We’d recommend checking the Stream quality in your app Settings.

Hope this helps. If anything else comes up, don’t hesitate to ask.

Re: Excessive data usage

EnzoPalm — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 16:09:11 GMT

Hello, the topic is old so I hope I'll get an answer but I got a similar problem yesterday :

My mobile internet get renewed every 1st of the month and I have 11gb limit. I was using it during my work shift with YouTube (took mostly 1gb) and after 30-45 minutes my video stops as if I had no internet.

So I checked everything to find the problem and it appeared that Spotify consumed almost ELEVEN GIGA BYTES (10.30 to be completely honest) IN LESS THAN AN HOUR.

Just to be precise : I never download during my shift, all my playlists are premade at home so I dont spend so much into this. I have no big files like audio books or something, just music and stand up shows that longs between 6 and 8 minutes, which are also pre-downloaded at home. Is there any reason for such a massive data consuming ?? Because I have no idea of how this happened. Even YouTube videos that I put on background are not taking that much (I mostly go to 1gb per day of work, that's why I dont use it that often)

Also, I've seen quite often that my playlists are re-downloading themselves for no reason, sometimes I go out and want to listen to music and almost everything is unavailable. Do you have an explanaition about that ?

And last thing, I just saw that when I turn on the app, a download bar appears but without any information. The Bar is at the end and keeps downloading. No information about what or how many files are being downloaded. I hope I'll get an answer to this, would be a lie to say that I'm not upset by that situation.

Re: Excessive data usage

Eni — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 17:18:22 GMT

Hi there @EnzoPalm,

Thanks for reaching out about this and welcome to the Community 🙂

First up, it's well worth running a clean reinstall to get rid of any cached files that might be causing trouble. This one is more thorough than the usual one.

Afterwards, we suggest that you make sure to toggle the "download using cellular" option off in the app settings to prevent the app from downloading your content using your phone's network.

On another note, regarding the download bar you mentioned, would you mind sending us a screenshot of it so we can take a closer look? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert image option in the post editor. Make sure not to send any private info.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

Re: Excessive data usage

valnec — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 08:40:39 GMT

Hello, same to me, on 15/12 Spotify app went crazy with the data usage while listening to Liked songs playlist. I regularly listen to podcasts and always data usage was reasonably sized. But now, listening to downloaded songs led to using up the data allowance and a $50 bill. It doesn't make any sense. Such an unpleasant surprise and huge frustration having to search the issue, write to the telco and here.

Re: Excessive data usage

OkayPerson — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 01:07:51 GMT

Spotify downloaded 10GB in a couple hours using my data, and I only listened to a single audio podcast. Reinstalling is a terrible solution because it's not a real solution, it doesn't solve or clarify the actual problem. Spotify already took all my data, reinstalling doesn't make the bill go away. Developers should add limits on data usage, I already have download using cellular set to low. These "solutions" are ridiculous and embarrassing. Thanks Spotify for costing us a lot of money for no reason, it's insane.