IOS 8 High Cellular Data Usage

Find My iPhone is switched ON as is everything else in iCloud settings except for iCloud Drive which is OFF.

Yes it was somewhat trial and error by constantly reseting and setting up the iPhone as New. It was one of these last attempts that I noticed that the problem only manifested itself after setting up an outlook.com email account. I subsequently did another reset/new and this time did not setup outlook.com but another imap account but as soon as this was added to the mail app the high data usage for Documents & Sync immediately started.

Again another reset/new and no email account added and everything was stabilsed as long as I was connected to wifi (whereas previously even with wifi connected mysteriously cell data usage would still grow). However once I left a wifi connection the cell data usage would still grow for Documents & Sync and it was not until I switched off iCloud Drive that everything was completely fixed.

So for me having no email accounts setup in Apple's mail app AND iCloud Drive switched off was the fix to stop high cell data usage in Documents & Sync.

regards

AndyG

hi I had same problem in uk with Vodafone £50 in the red but they told me not to pay until I phone apple so I did at first they said its not a problem so I said I like to talk to some one higher so a lady came on from the usa talked to her she sent me a email with a link to my phone I clicked on the link she checked it on her side said problem so stayed on the phone she phoned Vodafone they need to confem with apple then she said wait I can not send any apple data to Vodafone but what I can do is give you a new iphone 4s the same one I have so good result for me very helpful the lady in the usa so good luck to you all ,,,ps sorry I will not be answering any questions to busy but good luck

Had the exact same problem with my iPhone 5s, resulting to a phone bill 3 times higher than usual... Extremely frustrated, and was only getting worst cause everything I tried from the suggested solutions wouldn't work, not to mention that apple's help was non existent... It all came down to resetting my phone as new, which I wanted to avoid.

So I tried -once again- restoring my phone form a previous back, but this time I turned off Data Roaming!!!

2nd day now and Documents & Synch behave like they should have been doing all month now, NOT abusing my data plan! Of course I keep checking my phone every hour or so, in case it goes crazy again, but for now I want to believe that problem is solved... fingers crossed.

This is unacceptable. This has happened to me too. Att said they'll give a one time courtesy $25 to counter the $20 extra for the extra data. And of course they'll offer to upgrade to more GB for more MONEY (and they keep offering me the 15 GB shared plan, which would kill my grandfathered unlimited data on my other line). i will be readjusting my settings on the iphone 5 on iOS 8.2 so hopefully this will help. Only started after iOS 8 came into play.

Hi, I'm from Brazil and I'm having the same issue with my 5s. I turn off my cellular data, and when turn on again, it consumes 100MB within 15 minutes. iPhones are really expensive, so custumers expect to have the best product in their hands, but it seems that it is the other way around. Apple *****.

My wife is an iPhone user and she's had them all but never had problems with draining data since we moved her up to the iPhone 6. She has been using iOS 8 since it has come out and never went over the 5GB mark (10GB shared plan). Last week, we received several messages that her line went had used over 11GB of the shared data (including the data rollover from last month which totalled 13GB). I called AT&T this morning and they told me we used %99.9 of the data (lucky for us, our cycle zeros out on the 13th of every month otherwise, I would be paying for overage as of today). I am not a big fan of Apple and never will be since everything goes bad every time an upgrade comes out (this includes my iPad which has gone nuts since all these updates). My Android phone is being used on daily basis on mobile data and I play "Clash of Clans" on it (without WiFi) with 5 different email accounts all on "push notifications" and still doesn't use more than 2GB of data. This is ridiculous guys. This better get fixed or I will have the phone returned at any cost.

IOS 8.3 also having the same issue. As per my observation in my case, my office emails (exchange) are utilizing cellular data even the phone is connected to wifi. Tried may options posted yet the issue is still there. APPLE need to fix this.

I am SO angry. I have been a loyal Apple and AT&T customer. Apple customer since college in 90's and ATT since my first cell phone years ago! I have had every version of iPhone. I have never had a problem with data. I started on the unlimited plan but moved to a 3GB plan after I switched phones many years ago. I usually get a text saying I have used 75% with a week left in the month. I average 2.5-2.8 GB a month. Last month, I got two days into the month and got the text that I had used 90%. I am extra careful about data and always have been. I do not use Pandora, Youtube, Netflix, Whats App, FaceTime etc. I use my phone to call, text, Google, calendar, Twitter, reading news articles (never videos), listening to music from my phone (never streaming anything). I never update apps on cellular. Everything is wifi. I click to wifi when I can. I have all things turned off. Itunes do not download automatically, Location services are off, Background App Refresh is off, no Diagnostics are sent. I close apps every day multiple times a day by double clicking the home button. I spent 2.5 hours in ATT last month and they started with the usual questions. Once they looked at my phone and realized that NOTHING was turned on to eat up data, they were stumped. They even said, "I have never seen a phone this locked down". It came down to my word against theirs. They said I used the data, I had to pay extra to get more GB for the month. Now, I kept the extra data for this month. I reset statistics under my Cellular Data on the day my plan changed over. Now, ATT is saying I have used 3.1 GB this month, but my phone says 1.7. Can anyone tell me why this might be? The System Services says 181 MB and 317 MB in uninstalled apps. I don't know if this is Apple or ATT, but it is ridiculous! What is the point of having the phone if all I can really do is call and text. Maybe Samsung doesn't have this issue.

I Have had the same problem June, July and August of last year. I was 1 day I to my billing cycle and I used over 125% of my data. I was like you I have been with AT&T for almost 20 years and I was ****** at the extra charges when my phone was turned off and this happened every month! I did however get AT&T to credit me all the overages every month. I got a new 5S and I did everything that was suggested but I alaso had AT&T issue a new Sim Card on 5S and had my account reprevisioned and I haven't had the problem since. I have since upgraded to the iPhone 6 Plus and (knock on wood) everything has been fine! once that new Sim Card was issued at the AT&T Store and it reprevisioned my account and it has been fine. We Never knew what was causing my data to send like that and since I upgraded to the 6 Plus I have lucky not and ANY kind of problems SO FAR! LOL!!!! . My personal conclusion was my phone was hit with a power surge even thou it was plugged into a surge protector Cuz the back of my phone was so hot when I took the lifeproof case off it actually burned and blistered my finger. The battery was over heating and the heat damaged the SIM Card. I have had no problems with IOS 8.3 YET! My 6Plus has worked perfectly since I got it in October. I hope this helps you out!

I agree. Apple has gone to **** since Jobs passed away. I just got an iPad Air and have had it for only 10 days. Verizon just notified me that I was up to my 2GB allowance. How can this be??? I tried all the suggestions. Turned of LTE, turned off cellular, had no apps using cellular data, etc. ICloud is off. The only thing that in on, is my home WiFi. So, I refreshed my current data usage and went online using Wifi for 15 seconds to watch a news video. 9 kb ( I know it's not much) but why did it use ANY cellular date at all???? I want to return this phone but I'm sure I won't be able to. Apple needs to fix this NOW!

I forgot to mention that in my 2.5 hours at ATT, I had them change SIM card. It has not helped. I am in danger of going over my 5 GB limit this month and that is with vigilant use of the phome. Either ATT is stealing my data or Apple has screwed up my phone with an update.

Updating to iOS8.3 does NOT help. I've been using iPhone and Smartone as provider and has never had any problems with data usage. I hv a 6GB plan and has never used up all my data EVER! My billing cycle is on 21st each month. After resetting my iPhone 6+ network settings, I've been getting data usage messages alerting me that my usage is near my limit. The last reset was 21/4, today (28/4) I got an SMS saying I've exceeded my 6GB limit and will need to purchase addition data. I checked cellular data usage and it had used 75GB under current period in just 7 days. I don't stream anything or download anything on my phone. I clicked into system services under cellular and just documents & data itself had used 4.4GB!!

Reading the posts from this forum, I tried turning off everything from iCloud Drive to Mail to anything that runs in the background (location services, background app refresh...). I didn't purchase any new cellular data so I shouldn't have any new data available since my 6GB was already used up (no clue how???). I just connected through wifi. I reset my statistics under cellular, and just left my phone sitting there doing nothing. In 15 mins, it says the cellular data usage for the current period was already 57.6KB! I don't even have data on my phone as I didn't purchase any extra!!! Where is my phone using data from?

Apple NEEDS to fix this! How can this issue be ignored if so many people are having the same problem! Ever since the updates to iOS8, it seems Apple has screwed up something new. First it was battery, then dictation didn't work, now even data usage. This is unacceptable!

A couple of weeks ago I opened a support ticket at Apple Support for this problem, after consuming 14,6 GB within a single night. A week later, a senior advisor contacted me by phone. After uploading some diag info from my iPhone, he figured out the problem probably lies in the internal "syncme" process within the AppStore application. Apple will look into it. If he contacts me with new info, I'll post it here.

Still haven't been able to resolve this issue after months and months. Had to juts bump up my data plan so I don't keep getting hit with overages. It's ridiculous. Short of texting, I don't even use data at all even under wifi anymore, and it still uses tons of data. Crazy. This is literally just insane at this point. We are all owed massive refunds as far as I'm concerned. Still getting massive nightly and random spikes of huge data usage on Verizon data tracking at times when phone is not even used. It's not even carriers fault like Verizon or sprint or whatever as so many different people seem to have this issue with different providers.

i had the same issue with my iPhone 6 so Apple performed a reset and I set it up as a a new iPhone and that solved it. However, that did not work for my daughter's iPhone 5S. I took it into Apple yesterday and they couldn't detect any issues so they performed a full firmware replacement and reset. I checked her data this morning and it hasn't consumed any more.

If you have AT&T you can download detailed usage reports so you can see when data was consumed and how much. Unfortunately, it does not show what was consuming the data. One thing the AT&T rep suggested was turning off autoloading of videos on cellular when on Facebook. This can consume quite a bit of data even if you don't click to view a video.