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The kindle app on my android phone does not allow me to disable download over mobile (i.e. set it to only download over wifi).

Is there any way I can do this externally? i.e. via another app or settings or something.

I am led to believe it is available in some of the android mods but I'm currently on default android for my Galaxy S3.

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  • If you have root access you can install a firewall like AFWall+ it's free and open source and you can choose if an app can have access on lan, wifi, 3g and roaming or not at all using whitelist or blacklist. I don't know any method that doesn't require root if it's not built in in the app already.
    – Crayon
    Commented Sep 15, 2014 at 22:45
  • I was thinking maybe a proxy app. The app would however need to know which app is making the request. The proxy could however filter by url...
    – Michael Wiles
    Commented Sep 16, 2014 at 8:33

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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If your device is running at least Android 4.0 (or higher), you can tell the system to forbid an app the use of "background data" (i,e, upload/download stuff which you didn't explicitely trigger manually). For this, go to Settings → Data Usage, and you will see a screen like the first one below:

Data Usage Restrict background data
Data Usage / Restrict background data (click images for larger variants)

I'm pretty sure you've already turned "Mobile data" to its "on" position. Now tick the "Set mobile data limit" checkbox. Next you need to define your limits; if you don't want any "global limits", you can use "fake values" here – e.g. setting the red bar to 10 GB, and the orange bar to 8 GB.

Having that done, scroll the app list on the bottom to find the app you wish to restrict – in your case, the Kindle app. Tap that entry to open it, and again scroll to the end of the screen. There you will find another check-box labeled "restrict background data" (see second screenshot) – check it, and you're done: the Kindle app should no longer use mobile data without you actively telling it so.

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  • that looks like exactly what I want!
    – Michael Wiles
    Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 10:24
  • Glad to read – enjoy! I've got Google Play Store under control that way ;)
    – Izzy
    Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 10:33
  • I do hope that the android system seens the kindle app downloads as background rather than manual
    – Michael Wiles
    Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 10:49
  • Everything the app does while not in foreground (i.e. with its "activity" visible for user interaction) is background data. Kindle uses "Whisper Sync" for that AFAIK, which as a sync-service definitely should be background data. Playstore even goes so far that I cannot install an app forcefully while on mobile data without disabling the above before, as the download itself again is triggered using background data (via Google Cloud Messaging). So I'm pretty sure this will work for you.
    – Izzy
    Commented Sep 17, 2014 at 10:58

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