"Documents & Sync" - 80% of my iPhone Cellular usage!?

[JohnOCFII]

Well - my plans for today fell apart so I went ahead and did a complete Erase All Contents and Settings, and re-set it up from scratch. Of course, my issue could be tied to iCloud, and by logging in to that same iCloud account, I could be right back where I started. I did only re-install the apps I know I use on a very regular basis. I can add others back in as needed. For example, maybe it is something goody like the HondaLink App that tries to talk to my car, or Honda HQ or something. I didn't reload that one, and many others.

My phones have been backed and restored since my very first iPhone, which was a 3GS in 2009. I was out of the house and on cellular for about 45 minutes, and Documents and Sync only climbed to 1.6 MB. But it is early. I've had good days before.

For another change, I got rid of all Home Screen apps beyond the first page. All the rest are in the default App Library. Feels fresh!

 

[Apple-ish]

Came across this thread as I upgraded to iPhone 12 max pro yesterday, running iOS 14.3. Today I got a text message from my service provider that I had used all data (only a few days into the billing cycle). It seems that the documents & sync data usage bug has struck my iCloud/data account interface. In a matter of hours documents and sync used up 4g of data. This happened with wifi assist turned off, photo backup turned off for cellular data, etc.


I’ve since tried the hard reset and iCloud logout solution, as well as reset network settings, etc. However I’m not sure there will be an effective way for me to tell if those efforts fixed the problem because my data will be throttled for the rest of the month.

What a **** problem! And it seems widespread since ios13 based on online user documentation of the problem. Can’t believe that apple has not acknowledged the problem/offered working solution(s) other than to suggest using less data. Smdh.

 

[JohnOCFII]

However I’m not sure there will be an effective way for me to tell if those efforts fixed the problem because my data will be throttled for the rest of the month.

That is the main frustration for me. We outside of Apple don't have any insight to the black box of what constitutes the data that makes up Documents & Sync.

What a **** problem! And it seems widespread since ios13 based on online user documentation of the problem. Can’t believe that apple has not acknowledged the problem/offered working solution(s) other than to suggest using less data. Smdh.

If you search the Internet, you'll hear reports of this at least as far back as iOS 11. Clearly, the percentage of people who either a) have this problem, or b) care about the problem (which you might not -- if you have unlimited data, like many in the US, and, I'd guess 98% of all of Apple's iOS developers), is pretty small, otherwise, I think it'd have more attention. My wife's phone clearly doesn't suffer from this issue.

 

[zoor]

Hi, I have the same issue with my iPhone 11, and had it with my previous iPhone as well.

Meanwhile, I think maybe it has something to do with iCloud in conjunction with other Apple devices.

I didn't use my MacBook and iPad for a while, the data drain was gone. Now that I am using these devices from time to time, documents & data traffic is 200MB/day again.

We are far away from unlimited data plans in Germany. It's a big problem for me to run out of mobile data in the middle of each month...

Do you eventually use other Apple devices with iCloud synchronization?

 

[krawfo]

I read through this thread hoping that one of the posts showed a solution - no joy !!
I spoke with 2 different people at Apple support and both were pretty clueless. One even said that 5G uses more data !
My wife has an iPhone 11 and I've got a 12. We're both running 13.2 and she barely uses any data for system services and I'm eating it up.
I just reset statistics and managed to use 5.5MB of cellular data without leaving home and wifi. Go Figure !

 

[JohnOCFII]

Do you eventually use other Apple devices with iCloud synchronization?

Yes, I do have iCloud enabled on 3 Macs as well as an iPad and my iPhone. I am guessing you are correct that this is somehow related to Apple apps staying synchronized.

 

[JohnOCFII]

I just reset statistics and managed to use 5.5MB of cellular data without leaving home and wifi. Go Figure !

I too have noticed cellular usage when I am at home with good WiFi coverage. One thing I would check is that Wi-Fi Assist (under Settings --> Cellular near the bottom of the list) is turned off.

I think one of my initial assumptions was that if an application (for example, Maps) had its own switch for Cellular usage, that it could not be influencing Documents & Sync. After one experiment where I turned off all but Mail, and Documents & Sync continued to grow, I now think that applications can still be doing something over Cellular, even if that per-app switch is turned off.

 

[universenz]

Chiming in to say you're not alone. iOS 14 over here. Have had issues since iOS 13, and it still isn't resolved. Originally I thought it was related to using the beta of iOS 13, but even after numerous full releases, a reset and now being on iOS 14 the issue persists. What I don't fundamentally understand is - why isn't the Low Data / No iCloud over cellular options being respected by "Documents and Sync". I even switched off backups.

Also, worth noting, I'm not based in the US - as I imagine a lot of others in this thread (other than OP) are too. Outside of the US, unlimited data on mobile is not common. So this is costing people money and causing headaches for people who manage family devices and plans.

 

[JohnOCFII]

An update. It has been 3 weeks since I wiped my phone and installed it as new. Since that time, Documents & Sync has been well behaved! I've had approximately 10 trips out of the range of allowed WiFi, for a total of about 10 hours. In that time, I've had just one trip with high Documents & Sync usage, and I think I know what caused that usage. On that day, in a one hour trip, I logged 299 MB of Documents & Sync traffic. On that trip, I had to use a QR code scanned by my standard iPhone camera app, which took me to a web site to sign up for something. There was no appreciable growth in data usage for "Safari Services," nor for Safari itself. I don't see a category for Camera. So I'm guessing the bulk of that 299 was in transmitting that QR code (I had to scan it 3 times) and linking me to their web site. Outside of that, I've only had 28 MB of Documents & Sync in the last 3 weeks!

As I've mentioned above -- it is less about the quantity -- and more about NOT KNOWING where the data usage is coming from so I can make a conscience effort to control it.

So far -- wiping, not restoring, and setting up the iPhone as new (even though I reconnected to my existing iCloud account) seems to be working for me.

 

[Felicity Hildebrand]

I have had this problem for several months, and not found a solution. Pretty upset. I will try wiping my phone and installing as new I guess... but I've turned off everything I could that might be doing that. It is less, but still in the GBs. In December, I hit 14GB in documents and sync just 6 days into my cycle--I have five GB data.

I use hardly any data, almond always on wifi, low data mode, not data assist, and most applications have the data off. This is my 3rd iPhone, but the cost of data alone might scare me away from buying another!

I was hoping if I called them, they could fix this, but from an earlier post it looks like they don't know the cause. Thanks for posting, because it shows that there IS a problem with Apple's documents and sync.
I really hope that they address it!

 

[biy01]

Same here !! I am running on iOS 14.3 , Document & Sync consumed last month 100% of my 100 GB package, where I usually consumes only 10 GB out of it. I thought this was due to enabling the photo upload.
This month I turned it off photo sync on data, and reset the stats, everything went normal in the first couple of days, however, today Suddenly I got a message of consuming 90% of data.
I am wondering how I will continue this month without data !

 

[biy01]

Any luck with the complete reset?

 

[Felicity Hildebrand]

I haven't done it yet... I'm kind of putting it off because I'm not sure what kind of information I'll lose, and what I need to save. I'm thinking using a backup might not be a good idea, in case it brings the problem over? Thoughts?

 

[JohnOCFII]

I haven't done it yet... I'm kind of putting it off because I'm not sure what kind of information I'll lose, and what I need to save. I'm thinking using a backup might not be a good idea, in case it brings the problem over? Thoughts?

I had previously tried making a backup, reseting the phone, and restoring from the backup. That seemed like it was working, but after a few days, unexplained Documents & Sync started to creep back up.

I'm now at the one month point since I did the complete Erase All Contents and Settings on my phone. While I've had a couple of times this month where the cellular usage for Documents & Sync used a couple hundred megabytes, I can correlate that with certain usage, so I'm not too concerned.

When I set up my phone as new, I did not restore from backups. I did reconnect to my standard iCloud account. I have since only reloaded Applications that I needed. Since I've had an iPhone (of some sort) since 2009, and continually restored old backups to new phones, I had a LOT of old apps that I wasn't using. You'll have to re-login to many of your apps when you download them from the App Store. You'll have to set up your Mail accounts again too. You'll want to set aside a couple of hours if you do this process.

Good Luck!

 

[Apple_Robert]

I haven't done it yet... I'm kind of putting it off because I'm not sure what kind of information I'll lose, and what I need to save. I'm thinking using a backup might not be a good idea, in case it brings the problem over? Thoughts?

If you are concerned about what information you might lose from your iCloud account, you can log into appleid.apple.com, scroll down towards the bottom of the page and request your iCloud data for downloading to your Pc or Mac. You can elect to download it all or just certain parts of your iCloud. Everything is zipped and arranged in their proper category folders, so it is easy to find what you want to view. This would not only give you a safety backup but also give you time to peruse all that is in your iCloud.

 

[biy01]

This seems to be solving my issue till now, no more sudden consumption of my data consumption. However, now I have another problem, the iPhone storage is full and I have a 90 GB + of my iPhone storage being used by "Others"...
Tried to clear the cash of safari but that did not help... Any suggestions ?

 

[JohnOCFII]

We've now had some nice weather, so I'm getting outside for an hour walk every day for the last three days. Sadly, I see the opaque Documents & Sync cellular usage climbing 30-100 MB every day. At this point, even though WiFi-Assist is turned off, and iCloud Drive usage of Cellular is turned off, it almost has to be some other Apple service not otherwise documenting its cellular usage.

 

[zoor]

Since I logged my iPad out of iCloud a month ago, Documents & Sync data usage on my iPhone has returned to normal.
The last time it was normal was when my iPad was not used for several weeks.

It must be some kind of sync loop between the iOS devices...

 

[JohnOCFII]

Since I logged my iPad out of iCloud a month ago, Documents & Sync data usage on my iPhone has returned to normal.
The last time it was normal was when my iPad was not used for several weeks.

It must be some kind of sync loop between the iOS devices...

Interesting! I've not done anything with my iPad. I think I'll try that today. (I assume you logged it back in to iCloud?)

 

[zoor]

iCloud on my iPad is still logged off because I can't risk losing my data volume this month.

 

[JohnOCFII]

I logged the iPad out of iCloud for an hour, then logged it back in. That was Sunday. So far, no more than 10mb/day. I'll keep watching.

 

[Felicity Hildebrand]

I logged the iPad out of iCloud for an hour, then logged it back in. That was Sunday. So far, no more than 10mb/day. I'll keep watching.

Really??? Is it still good? I haven't had time to try anything else, but I need to figure it out before my contract is up, because I need to decrease my data. It would be amazing if it were that easy!

 

[BrianBaughn]

Is everyone here that's having this issue using iCloud for email, calendars and contacts? What about Photos, Notes, and iCloud Drive?

 

[Felicity Hildebrand]

Is everyone here that's having this issue using iCloud for email, calendars and contacts? What about Photos, Notes, and iCloud Drive?

I don't use it for that one my phone. Just email, calendar, contacts. And I have turned data of for pretty much everything that seems connected to icloud... But I just went over my data so I need to turn it off now. 90% of it was documents and sync. I was going to sign out and test it, but it's a good thing or I would've missed it. I thought it was improving.

I'll have to wait for next cycle to try to figure it out now. Wish Apple would pay my phone bill.

 

[JohnOCFII]

Really??? Is it still good? I haven't had time to try anything else, but I need to figure it out before my contract is up, because I need to decrease my data. It would be amazing if it were that easy!

Yes - it is still behaving well! I logged my iPad out of iCloud (and also back in 1 hour later) on March 7th. I've been out of the house a number of times since then, and my Documents & Sync data has only increased 32 MB in that time. But -- I've been fooled before. It has only been about a week and a half.

I'll keep watching.