Find out how metered connection and other settings can help you save mobile data in Windows 10 if you are frequent 3G/4G LTE hotspot user.
Windows 10 is without a doubt a fantastic OS with much to offer, but there are times where the OS can eat through your data cap with Internet activity without your direct approval. This might range from fetching news and weather in the background, for example, costing you precious data on a limited data plan.
A few months ago, we talked about TripMode, a fantastic app that let you have complete control over your connection and the transmission of data into and out of your system. You should check that out too after reading this article.
Metered connections have been a prime focus of Windows since Metro was introduced in Windows 8. The benefit of metered connection is to help you better manage your hotspot connection and mobile data so that you don’t end up paying more without meaning to.
STEP 1:
Press Windows Key + S and search for “wifi” and find “Change Wi-Fi Settings“.
STEP 2:
A new window will open up, click on Advanced options and you will see Metered Connections as a toggle on the screen that follows.
Turn on “Set as metered connection” to reduce tethered data usage on Windows.
However, this isn’t the only way to save mobile data. You still have the option to turn off background apps in order to improve the efficiency of this very guide. To do so, open up Settings and navigate to Privacy:
When you have this open, scroll to the very bottom and look for Background Apps. When you find it, you can now readily select which apps you want or don’t want connecting to the Internet in order to help you better save your data caps.
Playing with the background apps is the really effective way to making sure you have complete control over your tethered or hotspot internet connection.
While you would still have to download the ever so often huge cumulative updates, these services in background apps do tend to build up on data consumption, so it would be wise to disable some of them.
With that, we are at the end of the guide. Let us know in the comments section below if you know better ways of saving your data on Windows 10.