iCloud backup takes hours

Uploading gigabytes of data does in fact take so long. Upload is always multiple times slower then download. It is how networking is designed. The upload will be staged, whenever network capabilities are free, more chunks of data will be transferred. If network drops or is not available, the upload will pause and continue whenever network is available again.

Also realize that it can't use all of your network speed for the task - if it would do, you would experience connectivity issues in all of your other apps that rely on the internet, because every app needs up and download sizes to work. Even the browser , iTunes, AppStore, Youtube , Facebook and all these uploads tiny chunks of URL resolving bits to the requested Servers while you are " only" surfing.

The following uploads will be incremently, only changes will be applied, thus not taking so long in the future.

Sounds like good advice

This worked for everything but contacts on my iphone which is still taking many hours to sync :-(

Carol G's advice worked like a charm for me. Deleted my iCloud account, then set it back up and estimated backup time dropped from 40 something hours to 23 minutes, then almost immediately down to 15. Very pleased. Thanks Carol.

Thanks, this worked for me as well. Went from an estimated 4 hour backup time to 20 minutes!

Read your advice Carol but not happy to proceed with your advice to delete, and re-install iCloud account as I have just purchased $40 worth of additional iCloud storage hoping that would cure my slow (45 hr) uploads. It didn't. Clearly I fear losing my purchased storage. Thought from the Community please?

Many thanks

Will I lose additional space I purchased on the cloud if I delete my account and re-created?

Thans a lot Carol G!! Work like a charm!! From 6hours and keep increasing to half an hour!

you will not lose your data purchase. the data was purchased in icloud, not on the device.

Carol's advice worked like a charm! Thanks Carol!

Thank you so much for posting this and updating with the solution! My daughter's phone is not charging properly, and it's a problem that cannot be repaired, so we will have to replace the phone. I was trying to create a backup while it is still able to charge (it's unpredictable. Sometimes it will charge, sometimes not.) The backup said it would be about 3 hours, but an hour later it still said 3 hours time remaining! After logging the phone out of icloud and then adding it back, it says 11 minutes remaining to back up! I am hopeful that this will work....

Thanks again. This was an easy solution!

Sarah

How did you delete and remake your iCloud?

Yeah carol u rock. Problem solved!!