By 
It isn’t often we see popular apps such as Snapchat pegged with serious experience-breaking issues, but when it does it’s only right to inform everyone. The latest version of Snapchat — which added a news discovery feature — might be eating up a ridiculous amount of your data.
Many on Reddit and Google+ have reported that the app is eating up multiple gigabytes of data in the background (when the app isn’t being used) as opposed to the foreground. Some users found that it chewed through 2GB of data in just a week, and 6GB of data in just under a month. Some extreme cases show the app using upwards of 20GB of data in a week and 40GB in just under a month.
We’re not sure if all these reports are entirely true, but the good news is that Snapchat has acknowledged an issue that causes increased data usage and has already started addressing the issues in the latest beta version of the app. There’s no telling how long it’ll take for those changes to make their way to stable, but short of uninstalling the app from your phone grabbing the beta is the best route to go for the time being.
Now would be a pretty good time to head to your settings menu to check out mobile data usage to see if your version of Snapchat is affected by the bug, and to check your wireless account to make sure it hasn’t absolutely obliterated your data plan.
Used up .10 GB of data in a couple days (Without me ever opening it in said timeframe). Removed instantly and won’t be reinstalling. Never really used it to begin with and won’t deal with these kinds of “Mistakes”.
In some cases reported on Reddit, the app used 26 GBs! 26. Wtf. I feel like Snapchat should compensate users some how, although they won’t be sued if they don’t.
I agree..this i can see maybe MBs…but GBs!!! This is absurd!!!!
Damn! Imagine how this affects those folks without unlimited data plans!
WOW… Glad I read this… 2.2 gig of data used by Snap and never opened the application this month.
Well that explains why I got a message from the carrier saying I had no data left when 99% of the time I was using wifi. Ridiculous.
Wow I have used 1.5 GB on Snapchat… But I only watch a few videos here and there….
i knew it ugh all these people will be calling verizon shortly
I watched lots of discover videos and only used .52gb, but I’m on Wi-Fi most the time, I have unlimited data so I don’t really pay much attention, I wish I should see how much it used on Wi-Fi. The other big question is the people with lots of data usage did it hit your battery real hard too?
You should be able too. Under Data Settings hit the menu and tap Show Wi-Fi this should then show how much data apps are using on Wi-Fi
Thanks I never even thought to try that, I’ve used 7gb WiFi with watching a lot of videos each day. It’s split pretty much 50-50 3.5gb foreground and background. I wonder if the reason it seemed like it loading almost instantaneously was it just preloads everything, and it’s not actually streaming? I have noticed it was quicker the first few days and now sometimes there is a few seconds of buffering.
Also remember most of it is sort 1-5minute stuff, but solve of the vice videos were 8-20 minutes, wish it supported chromecast for those longer ones
Zero F*cks given since i have unlimited data.
Same here, and I don’t have Snapchat. If I’d been on AT&T, I’d have been in trouble if I had Snapchat.
Don’t think your network or you will still give zero f*cks when a few thousand of your fellow customers use so much data that the carrier flips out and throttles you/increases the prices for everyone else who wasn’t grandfathered in.
Like I said before.
How droll. Indifference has caused enough inconvenience and suffering. You don’t need to add to that with your own.
Yup, I have the app installed but I have been logged out since well before the update… and yet it’s used up 9 Gb of data somehow
I blame Kanye West for this issue… LOL
I blame Kanye for the continued spread of the douchefagitus that’s infected many segments of society (not the least of which being electronic music concerts). I like some of the music a lot but the toolfags just ruin it sometimes.
I haven’t used the app too much in the past few weeks but I’ve opened it a few times to view snaps. Only used about 130MB in the past month on my Nexus 5 running CM11.
Would you say you’re on WiFi a lot? I had similar data usage to you, but then included WiFi stats and sure enough, 1.5GB of usage over the last few days. Crazy.
I do predominantly use wifi, yes. I hadn’t even thought of that. I’ve actually got almost a gig of data usage on wifi with Snapchat over the past month. That isn’t as nuts as some people’s usage but it still seems a bit out of place. I don’t use Snapchat too often, though.
Thanks for the heads-up and the point on wifi, Quentyn, Chris and Co.
It killed my 2.5 gb of data in less than a week. Now I have edge speeds til next month. Snapchat, update or I’ll do nothing and keep using your app.
Snapchat should have to pay everyone’s phone bill this month. They have enough money.
Used 3gb Wi-Fi and 300mb of my data in one week. I noticed it and greenified it until it’s fixed.
Thank goodness I uninstalled the app a few months back, or I’d be pissed.
Snapchat has been updated for iOS. Changelog only says bug fixes and performance improvement. Not sure if it fixes the issue. But should be an update on the way for android.
Killed 6GB of data on my phone since the beginning of month and I uninstalled it before finding this article. Lucky I have unlimited data but its running slow so I’m guessing I’ll be throttled for rest of month. SnapChat sucks.