I turned off these Windows apps before using my mobile hotspot and saved 3GB in a day

I recently had to take a trip to the city for a week, where I had to use a mobile hotspot on my phone for internet access. The moment I connected my Windows laptop to my phone’s hotspot, it behaved as if it were back home and immediately started chewing through data.

Since the mobile internet comes with a far more expensive data tariff, every gigabyte now matters more than ever. I wasn’t streaming video, or downloading games, or doing anything out of the ordinary, but the usage still climbed. By the end of the day, I had somehow used up 5.5GB of data, which may well have been 100GB given how expensive it is.

So, I treated the laptop like it needed a mobile data mode, and after changing just a few things, the next day, it came in at 3GB less.

I made a quick hotspot checklist before connecting again

These were the five things I shut down before Windows went on a data rampage

Before connecting the next day, I made a small checklist of things to change in Windows, so it stopped treating my mobile internet like an all-you-can-eat buffet:

1. Pausing all of my synced cloud storage apps like OneDrive, iCloud for Windows, and even the two-way sync to my home file server.
2. Closing down all game launches, including Steam, and setting them to not open on Windows startup.
3. Disable Microsoft Store apps from updating automatically.
4. Paused Windows Update and Delivery Optimization and put all the OS housekeeping on hold.
5. Telling Windows it’s on a mobile connection by enabling metered connection mode.

Once those five things were under control, the laptop finally started acting like it knew it had a data limit.

Cloud sync was useful until it started costing me money

OneDrive uses a surprising amount of background data

Microsoft OneDrive is a seriously handy part of the Windows operating system, but it also gets expensive fast on a mobile data tariff. On my home network, linking my OneDrive account to Windows means my documents, photos, and videos follow me around without having to really think about it. On a mobile hotspot, though, that convenience means a lot of data use.

The extra annoying part is that some people might not even be aware they’re using OneDrive at all. But if you’ve ever signed in to a Microsoft account and saved files under Desktop, Documents, or Pictures and just accepted the setup prompts, chances are you are.

I didn’t want random file edits, screenshots, or massive Adobe catalog files uploaded just because my laptop found a connection. So I paused OneDrive sync by right-clicking the icon in the system tray and selecting Pause syncing for 24 hours. Annoyingly, 24 hours is as long as it offers, so I found myself having to remember to do this every single day. Since I actually needed OneDrive turned on while I worked, I set the download and upload limits to 125 KB/sec to throttle the speed and prevent large uploads and downloads from using too much data.

Game launchers were the background data eaters I nearly forgot

I was not gaming, but they were still ready to update.

Game launchers are easy to forget, especially if you haven’t played for a while. That’s what puts them squarely in the danger zone when it comes to mobile hotspots.

Steam, Epic Games, EA, aggregators like Playnite, and even my old Guild Wars 2 account all happily just start downloading updates as soon as they’re pushed through. I learned this the hard way once I caught Steam already 2GB into a No Man’s Sky update. I wasn’t even playing the game, but unfortunately, auto-updaters will still do their thing.

Before using the hotspot again, I closed every single launcher properly, but not before disabling their startup when Windows boots. I also checked every single launcher and made sure the download and auto-update settings were all turned off. For Steam specifically, I set auto-update mode to game launch only, meaning updates would download only when I chose to launch a game.

Store updates and Windows Update needed supervision as well

I still wanted security updates, just on my terms and not on my data plan

I didn’t want to leave my laptop vulnerable, but I also didn’t want Microsoft sneaking in its latest annual feature update cadence while connected to my mobile hotspot. So, the first place I looked was the Microsoft Store. Store apps are easy to forget because they run along happily in the background, and I never give them a second thought. But they still need updating, and they tend to do so whenever they please. Here, I turned off auto updates by clicking on the user profile icon in the top right > Settings > turn off auto-updates and video autoplay.

Windows updates were the next target, and I opened them from the Windows settings menu and immediately found the Pause updates drop-down menu and set it to 2 weeks. Here I had the option to actually pause them for up to 5 weeks, depending on how long I needed.

Another setting I turned off here was Delivery Optimization, or when Windows uses my internet to send updates to other PCs online. On the normal internet, this can be helpful, or a little creepy, depending on how you look at it. On a mobile hotspot, I wanted no part of it. So I disabled these options by going to Windows Update > Advanced Options > Delivery Optimization and turning it off.

I also closed the chat, browser, and startup clutter

The small leaks still have an impact after the big apps are quiet.

After the big data hogs were tackled, it was time to get the little ones sorted as well. I opened Settings > Startup and turned off anything I didn’t really need, just because the laptop had booted up. That included messenger apps, Adobe Creative Cloud, and a whole host of others.

These are the apps I turned off at startup:

• Teams, Slack, Discord, Telegram, and WhatsApp Desktop.
• Outlook and Thunderbird.
• Adobe Creative Cloud and printer apps.
• Basically, anything that had “updater” or “sync” in its process name.

I understand, of course, that these apps do need regular updating to keep functioning. I also accept that I’ll take a data hit each time I open them. But the difference here is that by turning them off at startup, I’ll be making an informed decision when I open them to allow them to use data to perform updates.

Browsers also deserve a quick check, as between all the tracking and plugins, they can quietly keep using data even after they’re closed. In Firefox, Chrome, and Edge, I went into Settings > System and turned off options that allow background apps to keep running.

Metered mode was the switch I should have used first

It did not fix everything, but it changed Windows’ attitude toward data usage

The last thing I changed really should have been the one I changed first. Windows already has a built-in mode for connections with data limits that I somehow overlooked. On Windows 11, I opened Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi, selected my phone’s hotspot, and turned on Metered Connection. Here, I could also set a data limit that, once exceeded, would force the metered connection restrictions to kick in.

That’s really all there was to it, though it’s not a magic fix for all data use, since some apps ignore it and download as usual anyway. It did, however, change the way that Windows treated the connection. Instead of assuming it has all the data it wants, it pauses Windows Updates, OneDrive, and Microsoft Store apps, and even freezes tiles on the Start Menu.

The big catch with this is that it’s network-specific. If I changed the hotspot SSID or started using USB tethering instead, I’d be back to square one.

The point wasn’t to make Windows offline, but to make it ask first

That was enough to make my mobile data go much further

After making these changes, I was down 3GB from the previous day’s data usage, and a further 4Gb the day after. I could still work, browse, write emails, and access my cloud storage without living in fear of having to recharge my mobile data every few days.

The difference really came down to having more control. Instead of assuming my hotspot had unlimited data and just downloading updates whenever it liked, Windows was now being forced to ask permission.

This wasn’t in any way a permanent setup, hence the checklist that I could reference when I needed to put everything back to how it was. And when I did finally return home and turned auto-update back on, my laptop chewed through almost 20GB of data desperately trying to update itself.

But it proves the point that ever since forcing users to update itself, modern Microsoft Windows is built around having an always-on, unlimited data connection. But all it took was a few settings and toggling off auto-updates to turn my data-hungry laptop into a trusted travel companion.