My iPhone with IOS 7.0.2 is using a lot of data. Currently I only have 500 mb per month, so I started to look where this usage came from. It so appears that a lot of data is used by 'System services', especially 'Documents & Sync'. Does anyone know what is meant by this term? Can I turn something off to reduce the data usage? It currently uses almost 10 mb per hour, which I think is a lot.
iPhone 4, iOS 7.0.2
Seems after upgrading to iOS 10, my device decided to back up everything in iBooks (almost 1 GB) to iCloud Drive. I've turned that off, so hoping that will solve the problem! Now I just need to figure out how to get it out of iCloud Drive, as it wants to delete the documents from my device too when I try and delete it from iCloud Drive
Hi there SanneBoo,
You may find the information in the article below helpful in finding out what is using your cellular data.
iPhone and iPad (Cellular Models): Understanding cellular data settings and usage
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4146
-Griff W.
Hi SanneBoo, have you solved your problem? I'm having the same problem. I posted a question here:
Cellular data drain (iOS 8.1.1) with "Documents & Sync"
but so far got no satisfactory answer :-(
I haven't been able to solve the problem yet but I think I'm getting closer. I've noticed that the data drain stops when my iMac is turned off, and that the data drain on the iPhone starts immediately once the iMac is turned on!!
I turned off my iMac on Friday and had no data drain all weekend. As soon as I turned the iMac on today the iPhone "Documents & Sync" started to go crazy again. I logged out of iCloud on the iMac and the drain on the iPhone stopped! So, I don't think this is an iPhone hardware problem at all!
To me it seems it's a bug in the iCloud service. Although all the configurations on the iPhone are saying that it should not use 3G, and that it should use the WiFi, it still uses the 3G somehow for some sort of synchronisation with my iMac. This is clearly a bug as I don't have anything on my iCloud drive and I have set Calendar/Contacts and Notes to sync only on WiFi. Apple please sort this one out. For now I'm switching cellular data off on the phone when I'm working on the iMac. It's the only solution at the moment.
I Think you are right. I turned off both my iMac, and MacBook pro for 3 days. Now documents & sync only used 4mb of data. As soon as I turned on today, 2 hrs later, I was up to 60.5mb.
DAng, I wish apple would solve this problem, or at least start a reimbursement programs for all the data we have used!!
I think I may have found the problem. Ours was icloud drive. It was set to use cellular data.
I've had the same issue - think I may have solved it for me.
I noticed my iPhone logs (watching through Xcode) that there was a kbd process failing to sync with iCloud every 90 seconds. I did a search on that, and found that it could be your keyboard shortcuts (and/or dictionary) failing to sync.
So I removed my keyboard shortcuts (like 'brb' = be right back, etc.) - turned off iCloud - did a hard reboot (just for good measure) and then turned iCloud back on when my iPhone rebooted.
Usage seems to have stopped.
Found my solution here https://www.cnet.com/how-to/prevent-icloud-documents-data-from-using-your-data-p lan/
Just turn off Cellular data on Settings->iCloud->iCloud Drive-> Use Cellular Data
Data usage 'Documents & sync'
