iCloud Drive is slow or failing on iOS

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Level 1

17 points

iCloud Drive is slow or failing on iOS

In the last few days I’ve been having serious issues with iCloud Drive on iPhone, both from the web and from the Files app. Downloads are incredibly slow even for files of just a few MB, and they often fail or at best take several minutes. This also happens when I try to download files from iCloud.com.

It seems to occur only on iPhone and not on my Mac (although many files are already downloaded there). The situation hasn’t improved even after updating to iOS 26.4. I also tried disabling and re-enabling iCloud Drive, but that didn’t fix anything.

I was wondering if anyone else is experiencing similar issues or has had them in the past. Is there any way to resolve this?

It’s quite frustrating, and I’m worried that if this continues, I might be forced to switch to another cloud storage service, since right now I can’t even download a small PDF on my iPhone without going crazy. It seems to be a recent problem until about a month ago, everything was working fine.

iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 26

Posted on Mar 27, 2026 6:49 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 7

21,308 points

Mar 28, 2026 8:25 AM in response to Alec-18

What is your storage on this iPhone? At Settings>General>iPhone Storage, my phone says 50.5 GB of 128 GB used. What does yours say? Do you have more than 10% free storage on your iPhone?

With less than 10% free storage, everything will slow down, especially background operations like syncing.

Keep in mind that iCloud is designed primarily for mobile devices, and since syncing uses the battery, and since lots of people are very anxious about battery drain, the iPhone will avoid syncing when not plugged in. And since syncing uses processing power, and people hate slow-downs, the iPhone will avoid syncing while you are using it. And since syncing requires bandwidth, the iPhone will avoid syncing when the internet connection is weak.

So, if you want faster syncing, then find good wifi, plug the phone in, and leave it alone. And be sure you have plenty of free storage space. Are you using Optimize storage?

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Answer 2

sberman

Level 10

276,022 points

Mar 27, 2026 12:17 PM in response to Alec-18

If you use VPN or anti-virus on your Wi-Fi, try removing them.

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Answer 3

Apr 4, 2026 3:58 PM in response to sberman

Actually, it works better with VPN than without. This what I discovered.

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Answer 4

Alec-18 Author

Level 1

17 points

Mar 28, 2026 10:07 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Actually, the available space isn’t much about 15GB. However, I didn’t initially think it was a storage issue because I’m mostly downloading documents that are only a few MB, so it didn’t seem particularly relevant.

As for syncing, I don’t think that’s the problem. The issue happens exactly when I request a document and the download starts it’s extremely slow or gives me an error. So it’s not really a syncing issue, but rather a problem downloading something from iCloud Drive onto the device when I request it. And no, I’m not using Optimize Storage.

Honestly, I’m not really understanding what the problem could be. At this point, I’m starting to think it might be related to the iPhone’s storage.

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Answer 5

Alec-18 Author

Level 1

17 points

Mar 28, 2026 10:09 AM in response to sberman

None of that, only the custom dns of Quad9 applied on the router but I don't know if they can actually be a problem because I've had them for a long time and until a month ago the problem didn't occur

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