Help me limit automatic downloads in iOS

October 25, 2015 1:10 AM

Other than disabling Google Drive and software updates, how do I limit downloads to only the stuff I want?

I'm staying at a hotel in Zimbabwe that only allows 100MB of internet usage per day. I keep hitting my limit because iOS (I use a macbook pro and Mavericks, if that's relevant) initiates automatic downloads to update apps, download random stuff from iTunes, etc. I've figured out how to disable those in particular, but I'm still hitting my limit suspiciously early every day.

How do I track which applications are initiating downloads? And is there any way to limit these only to the activities that I explicitly approve? 100MB ain't what it used to be!

posted by Tenzing_Norgay to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Did you turn off iCloud backup? Those normally happen when you're plugged in and on wifi, which sounds like something that could cause data usage in a hotel
posted by aubilenon at 1:41 AM on October 25, 2015

Just to clarify, it sounds like you're talking about OS X rather than iOS - a laptop not an iPhone.

Looking at the Network bit of Activity Monitor on my Mac (that's in Applications => Utilities => Activity Monitor if you don't know). I see that the really heavy user is Dropbox. Do you have that installed?
posted by Grangousier at 4:44 AM on October 25, 2015

(I'm sure there will be other people along who know a lot more about this than me.)
posted by Grangousier at 4:46 AM on October 25, 2015

In addition don't forget that websites often have multiple MB Javascript payloads so you might want to install noscript or something similar for your browser to prevent it from downloading if you haven't already.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 7:06 AM on October 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you are using MacBook Pro you are, as Grangousier points out, on OS and not IOS. Unfortunately, each type of software has its own way of doing things. Given that Apple itself is a culprit you need to disable that first. Go to System Preferences (on Apple menu thingy at top left)>AppStore and uncheck Automatically check for updates. Adobe is another culprit here. In Adobe Reader, go to Preferences>Updater and select Do not Download or Install Updates automatically. Unless someone knows better, you will have to deal with each piece of software on its own.
posted by TheRaven at 8:23 AM on October 25, 2015

If you really want to be aware of and able to approve/deny every single byte going in or out of your computer you could use Little Snitch which is a network monitor that will prompt you whenever anything tries to send something over the network. You can then set policies to allow, deny or only allow for certain ports, addresses, applications. It can be a little overwhelming at first but it's the best way I've found to completely stop unwanted network traffic on OS X.
posted by metaphorever at 2:46 PM on October 27, 2015