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Push Notifications Suddenly Using Tons of Cellular Data

I have an iPhone XR, iOS 14.7. Starting around mid-June this year I noticed that my cellular usage was abnormally high. Typically my cellular usage is less than 1 GB per month. I know, because I am enrolled in T-Mobile's KickBack program, which gives me a $10 discount on my monthly bill if I use less than 2 GB of data. I received a text from T-Mobile in mid-June stating that I had use 95% of the 2 GB limit for their KickBack program. This was surprising to me because I usually go the whole month and never even come close to the limit. When I checked out Settings-> Cellular to find the culprit, it turned out to be System Services. When I selected System Services, two categories in particular were using a ton of cellular data: Push Notifications and iCloud.


I went through my Cellular settings to see how I could reduce cellular usage, but wasn't able to find anything useful. I turned off Push Notifications on Mail, Slack, Facebook, LinkedIn, as many apps as I could think of. I also turned off Background App Refresh for basically every app. I am only a few days into my billing cycle and Push Notifications has consumed 148 MB of Cellular Data and iCloud has consumed 106 MB. Is there any way to reduce the cellular usage of these categories? I literally never encountered this issue before June 2021. I have been working from home for well over a year now and am almost always on my home wi-fi network. I use wi-fi when I am at the gym and any stores that have it available. So I'm only using cellular data when I'm driving somewhere (which I don't do much) or taking a walk. I'm almost certain that this is due to a recent iOS update and would like to know how I can fix it. Any helpful tips are appreciated. Thanks!

iPhone XR, iOS 14

Posted on Aug 1, 2021 10:56 AM

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Posted on Aug 2, 2021 9:58 AM

Thanks for the reply. I neglected to mention this in my initial post, but I have already taken all the actions above that have been recommended. In addition, I also turned on Low Data Mode for Cellular (under Settings -> Cellular -> Cellular Data Options). Yet still Push Notifications continue to use cellular data. Overnight, while my phone was in my house the entire time, another 50 MB or so were used. This could be simply due to the amount of time it takes to update cellular data usage. In any event, I have been with T-Mobile for almost 4 years now and until now have never been surprised at the amount of cellular data usage and have never encountered Push Notifications using so much cellular data.

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Aug 2, 2021 9:58 AM in response to bailier

Thanks for the reply. I neglected to mention this in my initial post, but I have already taken all the actions above that have been recommended. In addition, I also turned on Low Data Mode for Cellular (under Settings -> Cellular -> Cellular Data Options). Yet still Push Notifications continue to use cellular data. Overnight, while my phone was in my house the entire time, another 50 MB or so were used. This could be simply due to the amount of time it takes to update cellular data usage. In any event, I have been with T-Mobile for almost 4 years now and until now have never been surprised at the amount of cellular data usage and have never encountered Push Notifications using so much cellular data.

Aug 23, 2021 6:45 PM in response to i_rina

Update: I have contacted Apple Support. I had a call with a support technician and it was honestly quite tedious. It took almost 20 minutes just to get the individual to understand what was going on. One proposed solution was to do an enhanced logging session. I agreed to this, but the issue did not occur during the enhanced logging session. After this, I opted to just turn off Cellular data basically all the time. I have now tried erasing all contents and settings on my phone and did not restore from a backup. This also required erasing and re-pairing my Apple Watch. After going through all that I tried turning cellular data back on just to see what would happen. Within one day System Service again became the top consumer of cellular data, with Push Notifications and iCloud being the components under System Services using the vast majority of cellular data. I want to reiterate that I have turned off background app refresh on basically every app, turned off cellular data on most apps (including Photos and iCloud Drive), and have selected the "Low Data Mode" option under Cellular Data, and still the issue persists.


I am convinced that this is somehow a bug from the iOS 14.6 update on May 24, 2021, or maybe the watchOS update (7.5) that occurred at the same time. In three years as a T-Mobile customer I have not once been surprised by the amount of cellular data used, and the Push Notifications and iCloud components of System Services never even registered in the top 10 apps for cellular data usage. This is extremely frustrating because I basically have zero ability to control how my cellular data is consumed at this point.

Aug 2, 2021 9:34 AM in response to nicMetts

Hello nicMetts,


Thanks for posting in Apple Support Communities!


We see that your iPhone is using much more cellular data than previously.

We’d be happy to help you!


We’d recommend following Check the cellular data usage on your iPhone and iPad to verify your settings for cellular and turn off any apps that you only use on Wi-Fi.


You can turn off Wi-Fi assist if it is on and switching to cellular automatically when your Wi-Fi is not a strong connection.


You can turn off cellular for iCloud Drive in this section as well.


Take care.

Push Notifications Suddenly Using Tons of Cellular Data

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