With all the streaming, Instagramming, and everything else people are doing on their phones, your monthly allotment of data just doesn’t last as long as it used to, especially if you’re on one of those family plans with a shared data pool. And while most phones have some rudimentary tools for tracking how much internet you’re downloading, Google thought it could do better, so it created Datally.
Image: Google
Datally is a free Android app (for Android 5.0 and higher) that breaks down how much data you are using individually and across all your apps by the hour, day or month, and it lets you control how much bandwidth each services should or shouldn’t be allowed to use.
The app is available today and setup is dead simple. After you install Datally from the Play Store and accept the relevant permissions, the app starts automatically recording how much data each app uses and breaks it down into a handy chart.
Next, if you really want to conserve your data, you can turn on the data-saving function, which monitors your traffic to prevent apps from sucking up too much bandwidth in the background. From there you can decide which apps should be allowed to continue sucking up bandwidth by hitting the little lock icon next to the app. And for those times when you don’t want to blow up your data cap, Datally has handy feature that points out all the nearest free Wi-Fi hotspots.
However, after using Datally for a short stint, the one thing I wish it could do is also track Wi-Fi traffic, as this would give people a more comprehensive picture of their overall data usage. But as a tool to manage your bandwidth, Datally is a nice step up from the default data tracking feature in Android and whatever app your carrier may have come up with. As for iPhone users, don’t expect Google to release a version of this app on iOS any time soon.