How to Monitor Data Usage 📶 Avoid Extra Charges Now! 💸13 Methods
We have an excellent way to monitor your data usage, which will help you avoid extra charges for exceeding your internet plans. 📶💰
There are several amazing tools for tracking network packets. These tools show you real-time usage. So, check out the best data usage monitor for Windows! 👀
1. ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter for Windows
This is one of the best software for monitor the status of your network dataIt's very easy to use and allows you to track your internet bandwidth usage. 📊
It stays in the system tray and displays bandwidth usage for the current session, day, and month. This is useful for those with ADSL or broadband connections with a data cap, as it allows you to avoid using up all your data. ⚠️
2. The GlassWire Network Monitor
The network monitor of GlassWire View your current and past network activity by traffic type, application, and geographic location, all in a beautiful, easy-to-understand graph. You can go back up to 30 days and see what your computer or server was doing in the past. 📈
Click the graph to learn more about which application or network event caused a spike in network activity. You should try this excellent software on your Windows PC and keep track of your internet usage to manage it according to your plan. This tool also lets you do many other things, such as creating a firewall, on your Windows PC. 🔒
3. FreeMeter
FreeMeter is the best data usage app for PCs that works as a widget on your desktop. It helps you monitor network bandwidth (C#.NET 2k/XP+), desktop, and Systray graphs. Connection speed, refresh interval, color, and transparency are all configurable. 🎛️
You can monitor all network interfaces and use Ping/Trace/UPnP tools. This small, easy-to-install widget tracks your network usage and displays real-time information. 🕒
4. BitMeter OS
BitMeter OS is a free and open-source tool for monitoring bandwidth on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX. It tracks how much your network uses. internet connection or network and allows you to view this information through a web browser or command-line tools. 🌐
The web interface displays various graphs and charts showing how your internet/network connection has been used over time; an online demo is available! Additionally, the monitoring dashboard displays a graph that updates once per second, showing what's happening with your connection at the moment. 📉
5. NetWorx
NetWorx is a simple yet versatile and powerful tool that helps you objectively assess your bandwidth usage. You can use it to collect bandwidth usage data and measure your internet speed or any other network connection. 📈
Incoming and outgoing traffic is represented in a line graph and logged to a file, so you can always see daily, weekly, and monthly bandwidth usage and connection duration statistics. 📅
6. Network Traffic
It's another simple tool for monitoring your internet usage. After installing it, you'll see the icon in your system tray. 🖥️
To view internet upload and download data for the session, users should hover their mouse pointer over the two computer screen icons.
7. iTraffic Monitor
iTraffic Monitor is a network monitoring and reporting tool. It provides a real-time network traffic graph and displays the total downloaded and uploaded data for the connected session. Therefore, it's one of the best network metering tools available for Windows. 📊
8. NetBalancer
NetBalancer isn't just a tool for monitoring real-time data usage; it's much more than that. With NetBalancer, you can control and monitor your data usage. You can also manage multiple network adapters and processes. You'll also have the option to prioritize running processes. ⚙️
NetBalancer has settings that allow users to control speed limits for processes. For example, you can set uTorrent to consume only 50 Kbps. Additionally, NetBalancer allows you to check network speed, connected networks, data consumed by applications, and a detailed traffic analysis for all applications. 📊
9. NetGuard
NetGuard is another excellent tool for Windows that allows users to monitor their data usage in real time. Its powerful bandwidth monitoring tool helps users track data-hogging apps. You can also set a network limit for each app, which can help you save valuable data. 🔒
Another unique feature of NetGuard is that it displays graphs that allow you to understand the bandwidth usage of each application running on your Windows computer. It also analyzes your data usage and predicts how much bandwidth you need each month. 📉
10. Data Usage
As the name of the tool indicates, Data Usage is one of the best utilities for Windows 10 available in the Microsoft Store. Allows users to monitor data usage in real time. 💻
The tool has a clean interface and can display current connection details, such as external IP, hostname, local IP, etc. Data Usage is the best Windows 10 tool for monitoring data usage in real time. 🔍
11. Using the Windows Task Manager
You can quickly view all the data used by installed apps and get a summary of the current month's data. The best part is that you don't need to install any third-party apps to monitor your network usage. Let's see how to check network usage with Task Manager. 👈
1. You need to right click on the taskbar and select Task Manager, or you can press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC to open Task Manager.
2. Once you open the task manager, you will see the option Application HistoryThis option provides a summary of Universal Windows Platform apps, not desktop apps like Chrome or Microsoft Office.
12. Monitor using Windows Settings
1. Search for "Data Usage" in the Windows search box and open the "Data Usage Summary" system settings. 🔍
2. You'll now see an overview of the past 30 days. To access the details, click "Usage Details." 🔄
3. Now, you'll see the network usage of all your installed apps on your Windows computer, including desktop apps like Chrome and Office files. 🗂️
13. Find out if Windows is downloading/updating in the background
Windows updates silently in the background. This consumes a lot of internet data and can slow down your computer for a few hours. Users can usually end the update process. Windows Update from the Task Manager, but there's something else running in the background that's triggering the 'Windows Update' process again. 🔄
The Windows process called 'Service Host' usually consumes all of your internet bandwidth. Unfortunately, you can't terminate the process. Service Host from the task manager; you need to use a resource monitor for this.
Open Task Manager in Windows and click on Open Resource Monitor under the Performance tab.
In the Resource Monitor, select the tab Grid, and you'll be able to see the process consuming internet data in real time. You can quickly close the process from Resource Monitor.
Above are the tools for monitoring real-time data usage in Windows. With the tools and methods discussed, you can quickly see all the data packets sent and received by your Windows PC. 💻✅
Plus, you can avoid extra charges on limited internet plans. I hope you enjoyed it! Please share it with others too. Leave a comment below if you have any related questions. 🗨️
