Why is ‘General” under ’System Services’ using excessive cellular data?

Less than a week later after the visit to the Apple Store and yet another 1.2GB chewed up by System Services/General (thought the latest iteration of settings twiddling had sorted it earlier in the week. However, yesterday when out and about in the city, regularly checking usage the high consumption by System Services appears ti start after taking a series of photos using the stock camera app (even though the camera app itself claims to have used a few 10’s of kB).

So another trip to the Apple Store to some poor bewildered soul to try and figure out what next (hardware tests claim OK) and another comparison of configuration to my partner’s phone (identical model, broadly similar software installed, purchased 3 months later, doesn’t see the issue). Now upgraded the phone contract to unlimited data so as to not unexpectedly run out of data when away from home/wifi. Does seem to be an Apple issue.

OK, so near the end of last month, I was on a flight overseas, and took the opportunity to remove and/or unload most apps that I never use.

I thought possibly this would have fixed the problem. But nope. Just Sunday, I was driving somewhere, and all of a sudden I get the alert that my data got used up (I have the Dataman app to track these usages and where they happen).

Within seconds, 300MB used in General, for nothing.

So now, I'm hobbled again with data turned off until I can figure this out.

I will note one thing: it *seems* like the data usage happens when near intermittent wifi. You might think, "hey that's the wifi assist!". Nope, I have that off. Had it off since the beginning. But there is something about being around wifi that triggers it. A lot of times, it happens right near my house (Dataman tells me the locations). My theory is that some app requests a transfer while in wifi, the OS lets it through, but then the wifi cuts out. Rather than kill the transfer, it just jumps on to cellular and finishes the transfer. I wish it would tell me which app is doing this (the most frustrating part), but it doesn't.

Wifi assist off. Automatic downloads off. App store cell data off. icloud drive off. icloud backup off. In low data mode. Trust me, I have turned everything off. This just keeps happening. And only on my device. My wife can leave her phone on cell data all month, and we end up the same amount with my one burst of data in seconds taking up half of what she normally uses.

I am about to the point that I want to reset the phone and not restore from backup to see if whatever it is that causes this gets cleared. I might try this for a month and see what happens.

I was notified by Spectrum today that I also over used my allocated data and the System Services General Data was the guilty party, it used about 1.23 Gb. This is the very first time it ever happened. I am puzzled. It cost me 5 bucks.

I’m having the same problem. I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max using iOS 18.5.

I have a plan with limited data and normally this isn’t an issue - I am rarely out of Wifi coverage. The last 4 times I have been out of Wifi coverage, my phone has eaten all of my data - each time I have topped it up again and tried various fixes.

I am using Low data mode, data is off for all apps, I have turned off location services for everything except “Find my”, “Emergency calls and SOS” and “Setting time zone”; the only apps having access to location services are switched to “While using” and were not being used at the time of data drain.

I took a screen shot of my data usage at 4:35pm (21.4Mb) and another at 10:29pm (1.03Gb) and my phone had been turned off for about 2 of those hours. When I look at the data usage, it is mainly System services/General (1.02Gb)

You can see from the screenshots of messages from my cell phone provider that the data is disappearing rapidly - 204Mb in 1 minute on 6 May and 414Mb in 7 minutes on 20 May. I know that this usage on 20 May was after I had restarted my phone (it was turned off for about 2 hours while we were out).

Other than turning cellular data off altogether, how do I fix this???

[Edited by Moderator]

paulnevai wrote:

I spent about an hour with Apple support. They had no clue. They suggested to turn off Apple Intelligence (could be useful) and to turn off cellular data completely (it would work but then the iPhone would stop being a smartphone). So, so far no solution. I find it shocking that Apple seems or pretends to be unaware of the problem.

Did they ask if you had ANY security, speedtest or adblock apps including VPN?

guildfordnz wrote:

My cell phone plan has just renewed, ....

if I restart my phone while out of wifi coverage, the 1Gb of data disappears rapidly (within minutes) and the culprit is System Services/General.

Or the culprit is your provider, indicated and measured by Systems Serviced, General

Same exact problem here. Happened when we upgraded to iOS 18 -> no new strange apps installed. All of a sudden System Services -> General, which hadn't even shown up in the top ten use cases before, is suddenly responsible for 80% of our monthly usage! The jump was drastic - my whole family easily shared a 10GB/month plan, and now even I can't fit in 10GB - and that's with not using my phone.

Did I mention this is with sending 95% of the time on WiFi, having all apps shut off from cellular use, and using low data mode?

The ONLY way to stop it is to turn cellular data off. But aspects of the phone literally can't function right over just WiFi, and this isn't why I have a phone.

Does anyone know what falls into this "general" category of apps? This problem has affected some folks since back in iOS 13.

Of course upgraded to the latest iOS - still no change. General uses up about a half gigabyte an hour even with the phone closed in my pocket and no apps running. I'm now faced with either paying for an unlimited plan - just because of an Apple Bug - or giving up my iPhone. This is crazy.

Like everyone else troubleshooting this problem, I've checked everything. No Wifi assist, etc. And it doesn't matter if you shut down individual app's access to cell use, or even individual system services, because none of those matter compared to System Services/general, which I haven't found a way to turn off.

Obviously this isn't affecting a LOT of users, else Apple would have to address it.

If there's anyone reading this who worked at Apple and can say what General means and where it comes from, that alone would be such useful information. Could this actually be a virus that operates through System Services?

I erased it and then restored it from a backup. A couple of days OK and then about 1Gb in less than 1/2 hour while driving from of WiFi to another one. I switched to unlimited data now and since then I had 0 extra bytes. Odd. Could it be a conspiracy from the provider to force users to switch to unlimited data? Just an idea although I am not a conspiracy theorist.

.My wife’s samsung and my daughter’s iphone don’t have this problem, we share a data plan. I reset mine to factory settings and recovered from backup and the issue is still there. Weeks with no unusual System/General usage (MB) and all of a sudden it shows GBs worth of usage. I’m a minimal user (just online maps and offline books and downloaded music), don’t have any game installed. Wasted many hours with Xfinity and Apple support to no avail. It forced me to pay for an unlimited plan even though my entire family uses about 3-5 Gb per month. My next phone will be Android.

[Edited by Moderator]

Nope, System Services/General suck up huge amount of data in just a couple of days, I have reset Statistics tens of times and monitor it while paying for many extra GB in my cell data plan. The culprit is not the provider, it’s Apple. My wife’s samsung and my daughter’s iphone don’t have this problem, we share a data plan. I reset mine to factory settings and recovered from backup and the issue is still there. Weeks with no unusual System/General usage (MB) and all of a sudden it shows GBs worth of usage. I’m a minimal user (just online maps and offline books and downloaded music), don’t have any game installed. Wasted many hours with Xfinity and Apple support to no avail. It forced me to pay for an unlimited plan even though my entire family uses about 3-5 Gb per month. My next phone will be Android.

Mine was always off and still is. Still I have this general data usage issue. Let me know if your soulution worked in

the long run, i.e., come back to the forum in a month or so and let us know what happened.

I have a problematic iPhone 13, and I have also made a warranty claim to AASP, I have also received news that my iPhone has been replaced with a new unit. What I want to ask is that the iPhone 13 has been discontinued, is the replacement unit that I received still the discontinued iPhone 13? Thank you for answering my question🙏🏽

I would love an answer to this question as well. My wife does not have the problem, even if though she has the same settings. My “General” category under “System Settings” regularly consumes a third to half of all my data. I have a VPN, but almost never have it on. Maybe adblocker software? Apple support recommended low data mode, turn off notifications and location, which did nothing. Seemed like generic, clueless advice from their chat. It is quite expensive to buy twice the data, especially since I am traveling and using a second e-sim. My wife is with me, and has the same provider/settings and not the same problem. Thank you!

[Edited by Moderator]

Even doing a factory reset and just having the “stock” iOS apps I’ll observe the same problem (typical Apple genius excuse of it must be other app of company VPN configuration so reset test and slowly add back). Given it’s under the cloak of System Services, General one would have hoped the Genius Bar may have been able to explain.

Odd how my partner’s phone (16Pro but 5 months younger) with near identical configuration doesn’t do it.

Hello guildfordnz. I saw you posted this description on another thread, but I was unable to reply there since that thread was closed. First, I want to say that I really appreciate your clear description of how data is disappearing from your phone, complete with screenshots, and the ongoing step-by-step description of your own efforts to solve the problem through trial and error in the thread that you authored. It was very helpful for me to see what did or did not work for you, since my situation is very much the same as yours. In the last post I could find from you in that thread, dated October 1st, you state "I’ve upgraded to iOS26, so the issue may be fixed??". It has been a couple months since then. I am interested to hear whether the update helped or not. Thanks.