How to find out how much traffic Xiaomi has spent: full control of the flow

Owners of Redmi and Poco smartphones often face a situation where mobile internet ends up faster than it should. MIUI shell or the new HyperOS provide powerful monitoring tools, but they are not always obvious to the average user. Understanding where gigabytes go not only saves money, but also prolongs the device's standalone operation.

System services and background processes can consume traffic unnoticed even if you don’t use a browser or streaming service. In this article, we’ll look at detailed ways to check statistics, adjust notifications, and block unwanted data consumption, and learn how to manage your data plan with maximum efficiency.

Where to find general statistics on Internet consumption

The fastest way to find out the total amount of data spent is to go to the standard system application Security, which is a pre-installed tool that every Xiaomi device has, which aggregates the data on the operation of all network interfaces and provides aggregate information.

To access this data, you need to open the Security app and select the Data Transfer section, which displays a general flow chart for the current month, and the system automatically syncs with the start date of your tariff period, if you set the settings correctly.

However, it is important to consider that the data in this section can be updated with a slight delay. For instant and accurate information, it is better to use the built-in widget or consult the details of specific applications.

And you can see the top of the screen in the data menu, and it often shows the current connection speed and connection status, and if you see a data transmission going on when you're down, that's a reason to take a deeper look at the background settings.

Detailed analysis of expenditure by annex

To understand which app is eating up your traffic, you need to go to a detailed report. In the Data Transfer menu, select Statistics. Here is a list of all programs, sorted by the amount of traffic consumed.

The system splits traffic into mobile and Wi-Fi. Switch between tabs to see where the main flow is. It often turns out that heavy apps like YouTube or Instagram use Wi-Fi, and the background processes of messengers are actively consuming mobile data.

• 📱 Social media – often consumes the most traffic due to autoplaying videos and stories in the news feed.
• 🎮 Online gaming – may not waste a lot of traffic, but require a stable connection, spending it evenly throughout the session.
• 📧 Mail clients – when setting up attachment synchronization, they can download large files without the user’s knowledge.

When you click on a particular app on the list, you'll see a detailed graph of the daily consumption, which allows you to track when the jump occurred, for example, if you weren't using your phone yesterday but the consumption was high, then background synchronization or content updates were working.

Setting limits and warnings

To avoid unpleasant surprises at the end of the month, it is critical to set traffic limits. MIUI allows you to set strict limits when you reach mobile Internet will automatically shut down.

Go to the data settings and select Traffic Limit, where you need to specify the date of the reset (usually the day of the connection of the tariff) and the monthly limit in megabytes or gigabytes, the system will calculate how much you can spend per day.

It is recommended that you set the alert at 80-90% of your limit, which will give you time to analyze the situation and take action without waiting for a full lock, and the notification will appear in the curtain of the status bars, and it will not be missed.

There's also a Background Limit feature, where you can force certain applications to stop using the Internet when they're folded, which is especially useful for programs that you rarely use but that are constantly hanging in your memory.

Hidden functions of traffic saving

In addition to the explicit settings, the system has hidden features that help reduce consumption, one of which is the Traffic Saving mode, which, when activated, blocks background data transfer for all applications except those on the whitelist.

Also worth paying attention to the settings of browsers and social networks themselves, many of which have built-in “Light” or “Data Saving” modes that compress images and videos before downloading, which can reduce traffic consumption by several times.

Remember that some system services, such as Google Play Services or the GetApps app store, can update programs in the background. Make sure that the app store settings limit you to download updates only via Wi-Fi.

Use of Engineering Menu and ADB

For advanced users who want to get the most accurate information that is not available in the standard interface, there are deeper methods. Using ADB commands (Android Debug Bridge) allows you to download detailed statistics of network activity.

To do this, you need to enable debugging mode via USB in the “Developers” menu and connect the smartphone to the computer. Using the adb shell dumpsys netstats command, you can get a full log of network activity of all interfaces.

adb shell dumpsys netstats | grep -A 20 "uid="

This method requires some technical knowledge to interpret the data, but it shows absolutely all the bytes that have passed through the network interface, including system processes that can be hidden in the regular statistics menu.

⚠️ Warning: Do not change the settings in the engineering menu (#4636##) if you are not sure what you are doing.Resetting network settings or changing your preferred network type may result in loss of communication.

Alternatives to manually entering commands could be specialized monitor apps from Google Play that request permission to use statistics, which visualize data from system logs in a more understandable way.

Frequent problems and their solution

Users often experience a situation where the statistics on the phone do not match the data of the carrier, which can occur because the phone starts counting traffic from the last reset, and the operator from the beginning of the calendar month.

Another common problem is phantom traffic consumption, which can be caused by a bad network signal, and when signal strength is low, the phone tries to maintain a connection by constantly switching between 3G/4G standards, which increases overhead.

💡

If you are in a bad reception zone, it is better to temporarily switch the network type to 2G/3G or turn on air mode to avoid constant network search and quick battery discharge with traffic consumption.

It's also worth checking if the Wi-Fi Assist feature or similar one is enabled, which automatically switches the phone to mobile internet if the Wi-Fi connection seems unstable, a common cause of unexpected megabyte consumption.

⚠️ Note: Resetting traffic statistics in your phone settings does not affect your real carrier balance.

To solve data discrepancies, it is recommended to manually synchronize the date of the reset on the phone with the date of your tariff period.

💡

The coincidence of the date of the reset of statistics on the phone and the operator is a key factor for accurate cost control.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions