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dru
Community Manager
Community Manager

Squeeze more life out of your battery and/or data bucket by limiting how often your apps refresh, update, and/or download data by disabling background app activity.

 

Disabling Background App Refresh by App

If you know which app(s) are consuming the most data even when you’re not actively using your device, follow these steps to restrict background refresh:

 

  1. Tap on Settings.
  2. Tap on General.
  3. Tap on Background App Refresh.
  4. Disable the toggle switch for the target app.

Moving forward, background app refreshing will be restricted for this app until you manually re-enable it.

 

Disabling Background App Refresh for all Apps

If you would rather take the set-it-and-forget-it approach, you can disable background refresh for all apps to maximize data usage savings:

 

  1. Tap on Settings.
  2. Tap on General.
  3. Tap on Background App Refresh.
  4. Tap on “Background App Refresh” again.
  5. Select Wi-Fi (app refreshes only while connected to Wi-Fi) or Off to disable app refresh altogether.

 

For more tips on how to manage cellular data usage on your Apple device, click here.

 

Have any other questions about your device? Ask the community! You can also direct message us on X (formerly Twitter) or Facebook.

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Last update:
September
Updated by:
Community Manager