diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 488c3f9a5..659c08705 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -3,7 +3,9 @@
 ## Unreleased
 
 **Fixes**:
+
 - Honor checks before launching crash reporter ([#1906](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-native/pull/1906))
+- Reduce the size of native-generated minidumps on Windows ([#1929](https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-native/pull/1929))
 
 ## 0.16.0
 
diff --git a/src/backends/native/minidump/sentry_minidump_windows.c b/src/backends/native/minidump/sentry_minidump_windows.c
index 3852de28b..6ab23965f 100644
--- a/src/backends/native/minidump/sentry_minidump_windows.c
+++ b/src/backends/native/minidump/sentry_minidump_windows.c
@@ -56,8 +56,16 @@ sentry__write_minidump(
             break;
 
         case SENTRY_MINIDUMP_MODE_SMART:
-            dump_type
-                = MiniDumpWithIndirectlyReferencedMemory | MiniDumpWithDataSegs;
+            // Only indirectly-referenced memory: dbghelp walks the stack and
+            // registers and captures a small window around each pointer that
+            // lands in mapped memory. We deliberately omit MiniDumpWithDataSegs
+            // here: it writes the entire writable data segment of *every*
+            // loaded module (all DLL .data/.bss), which is uncapped and
+            // dominates dump size — for large module graphs it produces dumps
+            // 10-30x larger than intended. Global/static data is rarely needed
+            // for crash triage; callers that want it can opt in via
+            // sentry_options_set_minidump_flags() or MODE_FULL.
+            dump_type = MiniDumpWithIndirectlyReferencedMemory;
             break;
 
         case SENTRY_MINIDUMP_MODE_FULL:
diff --git a/tests/test_integration_native.py b/tests/test_integration_native.py
index 92b29c185..6375b13ca 100644
--- a/tests/test_integration_native.py
+++ b/tests/test_integration_native.py
@@ -793,8 +793,8 @@ def test_native_smart_mode_captures_indirect_heap_memory(cmake, httpserver):
         appends a chunk around each writable-heap hit to
         MemoryListStream.
       * Windows: the native backend passes
-        ``MiniDumpWithIndirectlyReferencedMemory | MiniDumpWithDataSegs``
-        to ``MiniDumpWriteDump`` so the OS does the equivalent scan.
+        ``MiniDumpWithIndirectlyReferencedMemory`` to
+        ``MiniDumpWriteDump`` so the OS does the equivalent scan.
 
     The minimal-mode fallback on macOS (when ``task_for_pid`` is
     blocked by the sandbox) silently breaks the SMART-mode contract by