Onedrive's downloading speed is tremendously slow

Anonymous
2023-12-25T08:19:57+00:00

Hi everyone,

I'm confused by the fact of Onedrive's downloading speed to be very slow. I'm trying to download my video file from Onedrive and the speed is 1 MB/s only, having internet channel speed 100 mbps. Download speed from competitor's servers (Mega.nz, FREE Plan) is 10 MB/s, which utilizes my whole channel. The funny thing is that the upload speed was 10 MB/s to Onedrive's servers, but the download speed is only 1 MB/s.

I've removed any limits on download speed in Onedrive app, updated the app, changed TCP congestion protocol to BBR, but the result is the same.

Attaching here the pictures:
Onedrive download speed

Mega.nz download speed

Speed test (Microsoft)

Speed test (Ookla)

I'm quite aware of other complaints on Onedrive's download speed, but still hope for a resolution. I've sent my question to Onedrive's tech team, but here I'm posting to:

  1. Get more ideas on how to solve this issue
  2. Attract more attention to the problem

Onedrive app version for Windows 64: 23.246.1127.0002

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-07-12T20:26:07+00:00

    Yes, Onedrive throttles downloads to 1 MB/s. It will vary between 0.5 and 1.5, but the total will average out to 1 MB/s. This is done on purpose by Microsoft to limit usage. It's unfortunate, but it's their platform, it's cheap for a reason. I still have my 1 TB Onedrive because it's included with my 365 account, but I pay for Mega.NZ storage since it's at least reasonably usable.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-05-29T20:57:48+00:00

    What the hell is this?! Are we some kind of random victims to their faithful customers?

    It worked well until this week. I could download everything in seconds...now in the past 2 days I am struggling to find the issue if it's something from my side.

    But I have tried different networks, different PCs, laptops...i don't have and never had any restrictions on the download speed by the Onedrive app.

    I am struggling to download a 60MB folder, waiting more than half an hour because it is "calculating" first. Even if I try to download from the Browser one drive it is the same :|

    What in the name of fks is this after they jumped my price this month from 6£ to 8£ to have these issues now?!

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-05-26T00:34:18+00:00

    This response is BS. I am on a 5 GB fiber connection that has verified to test data rates at 5 GB on a FLUKE METER. I first suspected the ISP because that is who companies like Microsoft ALWAYS BLAME and network speeds, so I filed a complaint with the FCC due to not getting the internet speeds I was paying for... this is what led to an investigation and since I'm an expert in Networking to rule out ANY NETWORK ISSUES. My internal LAN is LIGHTENING FAST and speeds on my ISP side is also providing at 5 GB into my home as provided by FLUKE METERS. I have equipment that is ALL BRAND NEW with 802.11 ax standard that has speed capabilities to 10 Gbps. I have been trying to download ALL OF MY DATA from Microsoft for the past week, and IT'S BEEN OUTRAGEOUS. I happen to know in the past when I taught in many academies even Windows Server classes when we first went to O365 for our students that speeds were horrible. At one point, Microsoft got involved and they had to open the pipe on the backend due to the large amount of data we were trying to download for our students. We became aware that Microsoft THROTTLES the download speeds on their and they were willing to open the pipe for us to get the initial extremely LARGE downloads into our environment. Stop putting this on the ISP's, individuals' networks or devices. I have wasted an ENTIRE WEEK dealing with my files that STILL ARE NOT DOWNLOADED-- Just under 1 terabyte is what I'm trying to download so I don't have to upgrade to the $49.99 package. Obviously, Microsoft doesn't want to make this easy for ANYONE because they want to force people to pay for more storage.

    they only sell like 1TB in all of their subscriptions so paying more wouldn't even do anything, 1TB cloud storage and yet i'm forced to download on 1mb/s even though it could go at 125mb/s like on literally every other app on my pc

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