Sudden massive data download while on mobile data

[boatman12]

Hi all, I have been using and enjoying Spotify on an Android smart phone for years with no issues. Suddenly this afternoon the App decided to download 17GB of data while I was connected to mobile data. This has cost me £26 in a few minutes! I don't know why this happened but more importantly I can't find any option in settings to prevent this happening in future. I've had no choice but to uninstall the App until I can find out how to rectify.  Please help!

[Joe]

Unless you have a generous data plan, it''s probably best to turn off "download over cellular" in spotify's settings.

You can also set a warning and cut-off level in android settings > data usage.

[boatman12]

Thanks for the great reply Joe - much appreciated. I didn't know about the data limiter so that's really helpful to avoid future charges but I'm concerned that Spotify could suddenly inexplicably download so much data when all I asked it for is one song. I had cellular data on because I like to be able to listen to new songs when out and about, and with 8GB mthly data allowance I've downloaded whole albums while on data with little impact to my allowance. If Spotify can suddenly decide to download many GBs of data without request I can't trust it and so would have to turn cellar off leaving me without functionality that I should have - what the devil was Spotify doing and why and could it happen again or do have to remain disabled 😞

[Joe]

I've no idea what causeed the data usage. Maybe it redownloaded all your offline music? I'd be inclined to do a reinstall, just in case, as described here and make sure you have those data limits set.

I wouldn't do business with a service provider who automatically charges me for exceeding my data limit without any warning at all - I think it's a very dodgy business practice. My service provider sends me a text message if I exceed the limit and throttles me down to 3G speeds - no extra charges.