Our mobiles have become an amalgam of apps that many times we don’t even remember exist. We install these apps almost compulsively on some occasions, and then we don’t use most of them. These remain on our mobile “just in case” but continue to consume resources such as data . So we can avoid it.
Not using an app no longer has to mean a lack of control of all your activity and the expenses that it can generate of all kinds. But now we can have full control and revoke access to many functions of that app if they are not used.
Does an app you don’t use consume data?
Thus, apps continue to spend data and access a multitude of areas and functionalities of our phone even if we do not use them. Because on many occasions these apps must be updated in the background and continue to receive updated information to show us. Therefore, if an app that we do not use wants to notify us of something even if we do not use it, and we have not opened it in months, that data expenditure is going to end up occurring in the same way. Therefore, we will always have the risk that apps continue to consume data when we are not using them.
Therefore, the objective is that the app stops having access to the data only if it is not used regularly. Because the normal and most comfortable thing is that we are not continuously monitoring all the installed apps in search of the ones that we do not use and denying them certain permissions, such as access to the network. Well, there is a way to make all this much easier in Android 11, thanks to a new functionality that makes it easier for apps to not be able to spend data or access other aspects of the phone if they are no longer used normally. It is a new functionality that removes the permissions of an app, revokes them all if it is not used.
Do Permissions Influence Data Spending?
The permissions to which an app has access are many, although generally they are usually reduced to several groups of similar permissions to each other. This is the case of storage, camera, contacts, microphone, SMS, location, access to calls, telephone, etc. But if we access all the permissions granted by an app by default, we see that among all of them there is one that directly influences the consumption of data from the phone.
We are talking about ” receiving data from the Internet ” with this permission, an app can continue to receive data from the network, whether it is Wi-Fi or mobile, and it is precisely in this second situation where we are most concerned that the app may be making an unwanted expense when we are no longer using that app. Therefore, the permissions contain the key so that those apps can no longer continue to spend data if they are not being used normally. Well, the setting that we are going to discuss below prevents an app that is not used from continuing to spend data.
So you can avoid it
In Android 11 we have a new functionality that of course we think is the best that the operating system has incorporated. Logically it depends a lot on the personalization layers of our mobiles, but as a general rule it is normal that we have this functionality.
It is a new option that we find in the management of permissions for our mobile phones. And this option will basically revoke all the permissions to an app when it is not being used, also including its Internet access and mobile data. For this we must do the following:
- Long press on the icon of the app from which you want to limit the data
- Select the “Information” button
- Now access the “permissions” section
- Swipe the screen all the way down
- Activate the function “Remove permissions if the application is not used”
These permissions will be revoked as long as the app has not been used for months , so it is intended for those apps that we install once and do not open for a long time, not for those that we open once a week or a month.
The traditional method
We have told you about a new way to prevent more data from being consumed when apps are not used, but there is another alternative, which you probably already know, but which works manually. It is basically a function of the mobile data consumption settings , which allows us to disable access to them directly, and we can choose to do it for any occasion, or simply in the background. For this we must do the following:
- Long press on the icon of the app from which you want to limit the data
- Select the “Information” button
- Now access the “data usage” section
- Disable the “use data in the background” feature
In this way we can prevent the app from consuming data when it is not being used . Since the “background” detail avoids data consumption when it is not used for a long time, since it is normal that this app only works in the background, so it prevents it from having access to any data consumption. In this way we make sure that even if we do not use an app, it may pose a threat to our data bonus, as it would happen if we did not make any of the decisions that we have shown above in the form of decisions. Android increasingly offers us more functions to limit the access of apps to different aspects of the phone, something that results in having greater control of the phone and avoiding scares on our operator’s bill, something that is always appreciated.
