Why is ‘General” under ’System Services’ using excessive cellular data?

guildfordnz wrote:

My cell phone plan has just renewed, ....

if I restart my phone while out of wifi coverage, the 1Gb of data disappears rapidly (within minutes) and the culprit is System Services/General.

Or the culprit is your provider, indicated and measured by Systems Serviced, General

Same exact problem here. Happened when we upgraded to iOS 18 -> no new strange apps installed. All of a sudden System Services -> General, which hadn't even shown up in the top ten use cases before, is suddenly responsible for 80% of our monthly usage! The jump was drastic - my whole family easily shared a 10GB/month plan, and now even I can't fit in 10GB - and that's with not using my phone.

Did I mention this is with sending 95% of the time on WiFi, having all apps shut off from cellular use, and using low data mode?

The ONLY way to stop it is to turn cellular data off. But aspects of the phone literally can't function right over just WiFi, and this isn't why I have a phone.

Does anyone know what falls into this "general" category of apps? This problem has affected some folks since back in iOS 13.

Of course upgraded to the latest iOS - still no change. General uses up about a half gigabyte an hour even with the phone closed in my pocket and no apps running. I'm now faced with either paying for an unlimited plan - just because of an Apple Bug - or giving up my iPhone. This is crazy.

Like everyone else troubleshooting this problem, I've checked everything. No Wifi assist, etc. And it doesn't matter if you shut down individual app's access to cell use, or even individual system services, because none of those matter compared to System Services/general, which I haven't found a way to turn off.

Obviously this isn't affecting a LOT of users, else Apple would have to address it.

If there's anyone reading this who worked at Apple and can say what General means and where it comes from, that alone would be such useful information. Could this actually be a virus that operates through System Services?

I erased it and then restored it from a backup. A couple of days OK and then about 1Gb in less than 1/2 hour while driving from of WiFi to another one. I switched to unlimited data now and since then I had 0 extra bytes. Odd. Could it be a conspiracy from the provider to force users to switch to unlimited data? Just an idea although I am not a conspiracy theorist.

.My wife’s samsung and my daughter’s iphone don’t have this problem, we share a data plan. I reset mine to factory settings and recovered from backup and the issue is still there. Weeks with no unusual System/General usage (MB) and all of a sudden it shows GBs worth of usage. I’m a minimal user (just online maps and offline books and downloaded music), don’t have any game installed. Wasted many hours with Xfinity and Apple support to no avail. It forced me to pay for an unlimited plan even though my entire family uses about 3-5 Gb per month. My next phone will be Android.

[Edited by Moderator]

Nope, System Services/General suck up huge amount of data in just a couple of days, I have reset Statistics tens of times and monitor it while paying for many extra GB in my cell data plan. The culprit is not the provider, it’s Apple. My wife’s samsung and my daughter’s iphone don’t have this problem, we share a data plan. I reset mine to factory settings and recovered from backup and the issue is still there. Weeks with no unusual System/General usage (MB) and all of a sudden it shows GBs worth of usage. I’m a minimal user (just online maps and offline books and downloaded music), don’t have any game installed. Wasted many hours with Xfinity and Apple support to no avail. It forced me to pay for an unlimited plan even though my entire family uses about 3-5 Gb per month. My next phone will be Android.

Mine was always off and still is. Still I have this general data usage issue. Let me know if your soulution worked in

the long run, i.e., come back to the forum in a month or so and let us know what happened.

I would love an answer to this question as well. My wife does not have the problem, even if though she has the same settings. My “General” category under “System Settings” regularly consumes a third to half of all my data. I have a VPN, but almost never have it on. Maybe adblocker software? Apple support recommended low data mode, turn off notifications and location, which did nothing. Seemed like generic, clueless advice from their chat. It is quite expensive to buy twice the data, especially since I am traveling and using a second e-sim. My wife is with me, and has the same provider/settings and not the same problem. Thank you!

[Edited by Moderator]

Even doing a factory reset and just having the “stock” iOS apps I’ll observe the same problem (typical Apple genius excuse of it must be other app of company VPN configuration so reset test and slowly add back). Given it’s under the cloak of System Services, General one would have hoped the Genius Bar may have been able to explain.

Odd how my partner’s phone (16Pro but 5 months younger) with near identical configuration doesn’t do it.

Hello guildfordnz. I saw you posted this description on another thread, but I was unable to reply there since that thread was closed. First, I want to say that I really appreciate your clear description of how data is disappearing from your phone, complete with screenshots, and the ongoing step-by-step description of your own efforts to solve the problem through trial and error in the thread that you authored. It was very helpful for me to see what did or did not work for you, since my situation is very much the same as yours. In the last post I could find from you in that thread, dated October 1st, you state "I’ve upgraded to iOS26, so the issue may be fixed??". It has been a couple months since then. I am interested to hear whether the update helped or not. Thanks.

Were you able to find a solution? I have the same problem and would love to fix it!

That IS shocking! I have my data turned off completely, so I have a dumb phone when away from wifi….

Thanks for the info.

They did a bunch of remote tests: all were OK. They asked about VPN but I had none. Nothing about speedtest.

I know speedtests use a lot of Gb (but only if you use it).

I once installed a metronome app that drained my battery in background. You would think that Apple would do more due diligence for their 30%