Reset data usage on Android

Many users want to clear data usage statistics on their Android. Unfortunately, there is no option in settings. You can change Data Usage Cycle, but this isn’t what many users want. After some investigation, I found a solution.

If your Android device is rooted, you can reset data usage statistics with removing some files.

Simply delete (or better move) all files from /data/system/netstats folder and restart a device.
I suggest ES File Explorer for this procedure – a super app for file management on Android. Of course, you can use any other (root consciousness) file manager or even a terminal window.

In terminal window write:
$ su
# rm /data/system/netstats/*

And restart the device. It works for me, but I can’t guarantee that it will works on your device. Be careful – if your device is rooted, you can change/delete some important files!
Please – leave comments if this still works.
Check also some more interesting Android articles on blog or read latest Best battery saving tips.

This Post Has 14 Comments

  3. Anonymous August 31, 2013 Reply

    Nice 🙂

    Worked great, thanks for this

  4. Anonymous February 8, 2014 Reply

    thanks a lot!!!^_^
    it works!!

  6. Anonymous March 6, 2014 Reply

    it worked.. thanks…

  7. Anonymous March 12, 2014 Reply

    UPDATE:

    I'm using ICS.
    Nothing worked with ES although I have activated Root.

    Only terminal permitted me to do it:
    $ su
    # rm /data/system/netstats.bin
    # rm /data/system/netstats_xt.bin
    # rm /data/system/netstats_uid.bin
    # sync
    # sync /data/system/
    # sync /data/system/*

    Then I shut off the Terminal and removed my battery

    I rebooted and finally it was OK

    It's possible I added unsignificant command lines with sync but I didn't want to add some again and again and reboot and reboot….
    All I know is that you have to "sync" once to synchronize data in memory with data on disk

  9. Tom May 12, 2015 Reply

    sync flushes all filesystem buffers, you don't need to pass a path to it.

  10. Unknown October 26, 2015 Reply

    You can do it without root.. Using ADB, Requires a PC though

  11. Unknown November 11, 2016 Reply

    @ Abdul, how pls I'll like to know

  12. Unknown December 22, 2016 Reply

    Didnt work for me. 😞😔

  13. Iztok Grilc December 22, 2016 Reply

    @Marli:
    Hm, this post is over three years old … and I'm not sure, if everything still works.
    Sorry.

  14. Anonymous January 25, 2017 Reply

    Clearing the files in netstats folder works in most devices..but in my case this method also clears all the google accounts from the devices as well.
    Is this the same for others too?

Leave a Reply