What does the triangle symbol mean on your Samsung phone?

If you’ve ever noticed a small triangle in the status bar of your Samsung phone and are wondering what it is, don’t worry, it just means that the Data Saver feature is enabled. If you’re primarily on a Wi-Fi network, feel free to turn it off. But if you rely solely on your mobile data most of the time, this is one of Samsung’s secret features you might want to leave enabled. Indeed, unlike Wi-Fi networks which generally have no limit, mobile data plans are often limited by a data allowance. Without Data Saver enabled, you’ll need to keep an eye on your mobile data usage to make sure you don’t run out of data faster than you think.

But how exactly does Samsung Data Saver help? True to its name, the Data Saver feature conserves your mobile data by allowing apps to consume data only while you’re actively using it. As soon as you close an app, it will no longer have access to your data even if it is still running in the background. You would have to restart it to reconnect it to the Internet. However, in addition to limiting the amount of mobile data used by your device, the data saver on your Samsung phone also extends the life of your battery. Since apps aren’t constantly using your phone’s resources to communicate with online servers, your battery doesn’t need to work too hard.

Data Saver is one of the Samsung Galaxy features that you need to enable yourself. If you already see the triangle symbol on your phone’s status bar, that means the feature is enabled and ready to use. The default configuration should work fine in most cases, but you can also change its settings to make sure the feature suits your needs even better.

By default, Data Saver affects most apps on your device. However, there may be times when you need specific apps to consume data even when you’re not using them. Maybe you upload a video to YouTube. Or maybe you sync your local files with your cloud storage. It’s also a good idea to let online messaging apps use data in the background if you experience notification delays from these apps.

In these cases, you can simply exclude the applications of your choice from Data Saver to allow them to work without interruption. Here’s how to do it:

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Open connections.
3. Tap Data usage.
4. Choose Data Saver at the top.
5. Go to apps that may still use data.
6. Enable apps that you allow to use data in the background. Some native Samsung apps are already excluded from Data Saver’s effects right out of the box.

From there, just exit Settings and you’re good to go. If you’re done using Data Saver and want to turn it off, all you need to do is tap and hold the mobile data icon in the Quick Settings panel, select Data Saver, and turn off “Turn On Now”. If you don’t see the option to turn off data saver, you may need to reset your mobile network settings first. You can find this option in the Settings app, under Reset in the General Management section.