How much data does Messaging & email use?
About 10MB an hour at text & email.
Text is free in every way that matters. It is the attachments that cost you.
Put that on a real trip: 60 minutes a day for 10 days at text & email works out at about 0.1GB , before anything else on your phone, and before the 120MB a day that background sync quietly takes.
Messaging & email data usage by quality
| Quality | Data | 1GB lasts | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Text & email | 10MB/hr | 4 days | measured |
Published means the service states the figure itself. Bitrate means it's arithmetic from a documented stream rate. Measured means it's corroborated across independent tests. Real usage moves with signal strength and how aggressively the app pre-buffers.
How that compares
Lighter than Messaging & email
- Google Maps7MB/hr
Heavier than Messaging & email
- Voice calls (WhatsApp / FaceTime)38MB/hr
- Spotify43MB/hr
- Podcasts60MB/hr