How to Manage Bandwidth and Data Usage in Chrome for iOS

Browse the internet without going over your data limit

Updated November 29, 2019

For those on limited plans, monitoring iPhone data usage can be an important part of daily life. This is especially true when internet browsing, as the number of kilobytes and megabytes flying back and forth can add up quickly.

To make things easier for iPhone users, Google Chrome offers some bandwidth management features that allow you to reduce data usage by upwards of 50 percent through a series of performance optimizations. In addition to these data-saving measures Chrome for iOS also provides the ability to preload Web pages, making for a much faster browsing experience on your mobile device.

The Google Chrome app requires a device running iOS 12 and later.

How to Manage Bandwidth in Google Chrome for iOS

You'll need to head into Chrome's settings to get to the bandwidth and data limits. Here's what to do.

Open the app and select the Chrome menu button, represented by three horizontal lines and located in the upper right-hand corner of the browser window.
Select the Settings option.
Tap Bandwidth.
Select Preload Webpages.
This screen contains three options to choose from.
- Always: Chrome will preload Web pages at every opportunity; no matter your connection type. Preloading Web content, while providing the convenience of speeding up your browsing experience, can utilize a significant amount of data. Therefore this setting is not recommended for users on limited mobile data plans.
- Only on Wi-Fi: Enabled by default, this setting instructs Chrome to only preload content when your device is on a Wi-Fi connection. This is the recommended setting for those users not on unlimited data plans.
- Never: Chrome will never preload Web content, no matter your connection type.
Once you have chosen the desired option, select the Done button to save your changes.