Why does Google Calendar sync eat so much data, and how do I stop it?

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Why does Google Calendar sync eat so much data, and how do I stop it?

The good news is that my iPhone calendar/Google Calendar sync works just fine.

However, even adding the most basic calendar entry on my phone--a description, time, and reminder--eats approximately 1 megabyte of cellular data. This seems rather excessive. As I am on a metered plan, if there's a way to cut down on this waste, I'd like to do so.

iPhone 4S, iOS 7.0.6

Posted on Mar 6, 2014 12:40 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 6, 2014 12:50 PM in response to dragon_wagon

Whether or not that is excessive would depend on the number of entries, etc. 1 MB really isn't all that much these days. A couple of things to consider:

Reduce the amount of historical entries you are sycning (Settings App > Mail,Contacts,Calendar > [scroll down to CALENDARS] > Sync [set to something other than All Events]
Remove the Calendar from the approved Cellular list and only sync via WiFi (Settings App > Cellular > [scroll down to USE CELLULAR DATA FOR] Calendar [turn OFF]
Consider a source other than Google for syncing. Could be an issue on Google's end. I do currently sync Google calendar, but very rarely use it, so can't really use myself as a comparison for you.

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Answer 2

dragon_wagon Author

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Mar 6, 2014 12:56 PM in response to Kilgore-Trout

In my book, 1 MB is a lot of data considering that the actual payload of the entry can't be much more than a kilobyte, if that. There's obviously a ton of shuffling going on behind the scenes for somebody.

I'd already gone down to one month back, I can tighten it up but it didn't seem to help to do that in the first place. And yes, I know I can disable cellular data for calendar entries altogether, but limitations like that really eat into the utility of a smartphone...

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