Cellular data drain (iOS 8.1.1) with "Documents & Sync"

I promised to give an update: I was on WiFi only when I dit the test so it worked (of course) and no cellular data was used. Next time I will try with cellular data only (no wifi).

It just came to mind that when I had the problem the last time I was on a resort with flaky wifi. Also after some inactivity like 30 minutes I had to relogin. Maybe this is the problem that iOS document & sync begins on WiFi and midway WiFi drops and syncing continues over cellular. Just a thought.

My problem is solved.

I have the same problem with my iPhone 6s with iOS 9.1 installed. Data draining crazily despite every possible thing related to mobile data is switched off.

Documents and sync is draining rapidly which makes my iPhone unusable. Siri also drain the data despite it is switched off.

My problem started after my new iMac 5K was bought. After reading all comments, my explanation of the problem is that the keychain is corrupted for some unknown reason. When iMac is connected with the keychain, iPhone keeps connecting with the keychain file. Somehow there is error and iPhone keeps looping around for this problem and thus created lots of junk file in the documents and sync.

As such, I deleted the keychain in my new iMac, the problem is gone immediately. I can then rebuilt the keychain in iMac after I confirm it works. Somehow, it really works for me!

Second, I disable the siri and also the dictation setting in the keyboard item in the iPhone. Siri no longer drain the data!

Deactivate keychain on ALL devices connected with your Account stops cellular data drain!

So, bit of a long post but this is a vexing problem for some (including me).

I am having the same problem with my iPhone 6 (iOS 9.1). The problems seems to have started either after the iOS devices were recently updated to 9.1 or possibly after I updated the last of 3 Mac computers to El Capitan. I have a late 2009 iMac with El Capitan. I also have a 21.5" iMac and a 200? MacBook Pro, both with El Capitan. The last computer (iMac 27") was updated to El Capitan with in the last 2 weeks. I have my phone setup to sync with the 27" iMac (not to the cloud). My data went over this past month (5gb plan) for the first time in years. I have an iPad Air that was also using cellular data at a high rate. In addition, my wife has an iPhone 5S (with its own Apple ID) and it started eating data as well. All of the devices are set to sync to the 27" iMac.

After reading this thread I have done the following:

Turned off iCloud Drive on all iOS devices

Turned off iCloud drive on the 27" and 21.5" iMacs (the MacBook Pro is at the office as must be sleeping at this point - I'll turn iCloud off on that computer in the morning)

Turned off iCloud drive on all iOS devices

Did a fresh restore on all iOS devices

Data continued to accumulate primarily under "Documents & Sync"

I then turned off keychain on all iOS devices and the 27" and 21.5" iMacs. This seems to have stopped the cellular data usage on my iPhone 6.

Because I was first alerted to the data issue by a text message from my wireless carrier, I'm not sure when the increased data usage started (in the past billing cycle which ended November 19th). I'm also not sure exactly what date I updated the last computer (iMac 27") to El Capitan. I plan on calling my wireless carrier to see if they can provide me with a tracking of daily data usage for the past month. Then I'll check with Apple Support to see if they are able to tell me what date I updated the final computer (iMac 27") to El Capitan.

I'm not sure what has caused the problem; ElCapitan upgrade on the last computer (the one I sync and backup my IOS devices to), or the upgrade to iOS 9.1 or a combination of the two.

It looks, at this point that keychain is complicit as shutting it down on every Apple device is the only thing that has stopped the data accumulation on my iPhone 6 (haven't checked the other devices yet).

I'll update this once I have the additional information.

I'm on the drain train as well and just turned off keychain for good. But, in a day documents& sync ate 1.5 gb!!!

I was surprised yesterday when I recevied the carrier´s message that I had only 250mb left from my monthly plan but well, 23 days in my current cycle. Couple of hours afterwards I get a message that I don't have any data left. No problem, I requested 1.5gb that lasts you 5 days with LTE speed. Today, an alert again that I have 250mb left and well, now I'm here.

To provide a bit of background, I reset my iPhone last weekend (because of the iTunes issue where some songs don't get transfered, sort of randomly). In any case, the re-synching of data might have triggered this behavior, I can't think of anything else because I'm pretty sure before the reset this wasn't an issue (of course there is a small chance that it started right before the reset).

Completely disappointed to read posts even from last year... this needs to be addressed quickly, we are missing the keychain feature or spend god knows how much money paying the carrier.

<Edited by Host>

I spoke with a higher level tech today. He said he had heard of a few of these cases but not many. He is going to escalate the issue to the software engineer level. I believe my issue somehow stems from El Capitman being installed on the last of 3 Macs connected with my Apple ID And getting iCloud Drive operating. I haven't checked with my carrier yet but I won't be surprised to learn that the data drain started when El Capitan was installed on that computer. It is the common denominator as my wife's iPhone started using data as well and she has a different Apple ID. She does, however back her iPhone up to that third computer I mentioned, as do I. For now, shutting down Keychain is a minor inconvenience compared to going through gigabytes of data.

These support forums are awesome!

Yeah, in my case I ran into 2 issues apparently one triggeing the other. First iTunes now this.

I have an iPad Air 2 as well, and a Windows PC that has iCloud installed. I really hope this gets resolved because the fix is a minor inconvenience, but still unacceptable.

Hopefully we will be updated on this forum 😀

The the only updating you'll find here is from other contributors. 🙂

Yes, of course, but still some have already reached out to Apple so I'm hoping we kind of get indirect updates 😝

II'll post an update if and/or when Apple gets back to me.

I can confirm that so far disabling keychain has worked for me.

Today I bought 1.5gb again, and in the last 4hs Documents & Sync has consumed 321kb.

Slowly, I will start activating other things that I have disabled such as iBooks cellular data usage, WiFi assist and install iCloud in my Windows laptop again.

But most of all, I'm thankful for everyone that posted on the forum looking for a workaround, really, it wouldn't bother me that much if it was even a battery drain, but losing precious cellular data that you pay for monthly is absolutely inconvenient.

I have had this same problem - unbelievable data burn and battery drain too. I upgraded to iPhone 5s right around the time that iOS 9 was released, so I was not sure which was the problem for me. Two Macs also updated to El Capitan, but I had never considered that might be a contributing factor. Countless hours at Genius Bar and on the phone with Verizon and Apple. Verizon insisted usage was "normal". After changing every setting I could think of on the phone, it looks like Keychain itself may have been the problem. Right now I have all iCloud features turned off except for find my iPhone and backup. I signed out of iCloud completely on the Macs. Will turn them back on and add features one by one and see if they are OK to use. Not syncing photos is a big inconvenience.

Can't thank you all enough for sharing your experiences so I could find a solution to this problem. I really thought I was stuck with this mess for two years and would then have to leave iPhone.

I think we can all thank Seharad (in this thread) for advising us to turn off Keychain. 🙂

One more thing to narrow this down just a bit further, as Seharad suggested. I turned off keychain and it worked. Now I have turned it ON in both my iPad Air 2 and my iPhone 5S and instead of retrieving the data I chose to reset it.

So far so good, no data leak so it has to be tied to some corrupt data that keychain stores in iCloud. Anyways, keep in mind I don't have a device with OSX running so be careful if you turn the setting back on in all of your devices including a macbook, iMac, etc.

I wonder if anyone can also advise me on why Safari seems to be using an excessive amount of data. As I was testing whether turning off keychain resolved my documents & sync problem, I discovered that just a minute on safari used 1.5 MB. I repeated the test today and found that about 5 minutes of browsing used 6MB. I have so little data left in my allowance this billing cycle that I can't afford to test anymore for now, but that seems crazy. Admittedly, I don't know how much data I use browsing before I started having all of these problems, but I've typically only used about .5GB/month without having to be careful about what I do.

Also, what else uses Documents & sync?