If you’ve recently signed up to Amazon Prime and have been enjoying the many shows on the streaming platform, you may have noticed your data use climbing higher by the day. But there are ways that you can reduce your data when using the service.
Reducing data on Amazon Prime essentially comes down to lowering your video quality settings whilst streaming or instead, changing the download quality of the videos you are downloading.
Handy Tip: If you have Amazon Prime on multiple devices, changing your options on one device will not automatically change the video quality on all other devices even if you are logged in with the same account. Video settings are device specific, not account specific. This means that you need to change your video quality settings on every device in your home.
Data saving tips for mobile devices
Most people when at home connect their phone to their Wi-Fi network, but when on the go they stream using their mobile network’s data. Either way, no matter what network you are connected to, streaming on Amazon Prime uses data. Here’s some steps you can take when saving data on Amazon Prime for mobile users.
Note: All images taken on the Android Amazon Prime App
Step 1: Log into your Amazon Prime Account on your mobile device. Once logged in, click on the menu icon which is represented by three lines near the top of the screen.
Step 2: Once inside the Amazon Prime Video menu items tab, look towards the bottom of the screen to where it says “Settings” and click there.
Step 3: On the next screen you will see a list of different settings to choose from which will help you save data. You will want to at first click on the menu item that says “Stream and Download”. Click this option then go to step 4.
Step 4: Inside “Stream & Download” you will find a lot of useful data saving settings for Amazon Prime. The first thing you want to do is go to the “Streaming Quality” option in the menu. Click there and take a look at step 5.
Step 5: Inside this section of the app you will see the various streaming quality options. Select the one that’s right for you, but for the maximum amount of data savings you will want to select “Data Saver”
Streaming quality settings are as follows:
- Best: 1 hour uses about 6.84 GB of data (this option uses a lot of data)
- Better: 1 hour uses about 1.82 GB of data
- Good: 1 hour uses about 0.72 GB of data
- Data Saver: 1 hour uses about 0.06 GB of data (choose this option for the most data saving)
Handy tip: “As you can see in the above image, there is also an option to select “Use highest quality when on Wi-Fi”. If you are planning to change your streaming settings to save data on your Wi-Fi, then you should make sure that you un-tick this option. Otherwise it will stream at the highest quality on your network regardless of your choice above.”
Step 6: Once you are done with your streaming quality settings you will want to go back one more step to the “Stream and Download Page”. If you really want to make sure you don’t accidentally stream data on your mobile network while at home, you can tick the “Download on Wi-Fi only” and “Stream on Wi-Fi only” buttons. You will also want to activate the “Notify When Streaming on Mobile Data” button.
Step 7: Test your settings are working: After you have put on all three of the mentioned options on from step 6 and when you have checked that you are connected to Wi-Fi. Then you can try to play a video and it should display a message on your phone or tablet. If you see this message it means everything you activated in step 6 is working, you won’t be able to use your phone’s data to stream.
Data saving tips for Amazon Prime when downloading shows on a tablet or mobile
People who are using Amazon Prime at home on their tablet or mobile have the ability to download content at a certain time, which they can then watch later. Many use this feature during off-peak times and then watch shows later on during the peak hours. But this method does use quite a bit of data too, so if you really want to save, you should try these steps.
Step 1: To change your download settings follow steps 1-4 of the mobile streaming guide and when you get to the “Stream and Download” settings page on your device click on “Download Quality”
Step 2: Choose to download videos at the quality that is right for you and your plan. You can see in this screen the different video quality options and how much data they will take when they download things. Download quality sizes are as follows:
- Best: 1 hour of video uses about 6.64 GB of data (this option uses the most data)
- Better: 1 hour of video uses about 1.82 GB of data
- Good: 1 hour of video uses about 0.72 GB of data
- Data Saver: 1 hour of video uses about 0.06 GB of data (choose this option as it uses the least data)
Data saving tips for Amazon Prime on PC
On a PC there are far fewer steps in the process to reducing your data then on a mobile device.
Step 1: Log into your Amazon Prime account
Step 2: Click on a video you would like to watch.
Step 3: Press Pause and take a look at the top right of the screen. There will be a gear icon you can click on.
Step 4: Once pressed, you will see a list of options for reducing your video quality. Choose the one that is right for you or the lowest if you really want to save data. You can change settings at any time on any video.
Data settings on PC are as follows:
- Good: 38 GB per hour (choose this option for data saving)
- Better: 40 GB per hour
- Best: 84GB per hour (this option uses the most data)