Why are My iTunes Downloads so Slow?

I can't help, but by way of confirmation, I typically get a 12 hour forecast for downloading a SD movie on a PC.

This is not your system.

I have to stay up tending the computer- it may speed up overnite. Sometimes it loses even that which it had and starts over.

It's not my system. Netflix streams away with never a buffering moment, reliably, any time of day.

I wish, when the issue is clearly Itunes/apple only issue , they would stop dishing out the usual suspects which a savvy user will haved tried a million times already. It's a terrible time waster.

I'd fell much better if they said " We have server and distributor issues, we're sorry and we are fixing it."

Hello, if you are facing a problem with your download speed on iTunes and running on WINDOWS OS, I suggest the following steps :

-Check if you are running the last iTunes version

-Go into firewall settings

-Check if "Bonjour" app is checked for both private and public networks

-Then check if iTunes is checked too for both private and public networks

-Restart your machine

Hit helpful if problem disappears 😉

5 years later (based on the other posts here) and it still takes hours just to download 15 app updates. Updates. I am on a 100MB connection wired in. I have been downloading the app updates for one hour and I am still waiting for 8 others to download. This can't be real. But it is. Does Apple slow this down at the source? They must because I can download anything else pretty fast right now, even while the App updates download.

I experience this nearly every single day. I support hundreds of laptops and they all use iTunes. Apple seems to come out with a new version of iTunes every other day...and the updates take forever. Today (03-07-17) I'm simply trying to download the iTunes 64 bit installer and it's telling me it will take 2 hours to download 169MB. I've worked in IT for 18 years I know when my internet speed is low...and it isn't low. Even worse today, using Chrome i keep getting "download failed - network error". I've had to click "resume" about 20 times now. I never use iTunes myself for media...tried to download a movie once while at home...on 100MBps connection....of course it would not stream and never did finish downloading. It reported 4-6 hours to download and I let it run for nearly 24 hours...it never finished. Apple has wonderful toys but their service is less than impressive.

It seems apple is capping downloads to around 700KB/s. 😟

Even iTunes updates. Total crap.

This is on my 100Mbps connection at home with TWC (now Spectrum) and even at work when I tried on Gov network sitting on 40Gbps fiber connection.

FYI: At least for me and at the moment it's downloading updates from 23.196.206.135 (a23-196-205-135.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com) which is in LA, when I'm in SC. *** is it downloads updates from the west coast when I'm on the east coast. No wonder it's so slow!

See: https://whoisip.ovh/23.196.205.135

I really don't get this. My Laptop, my wife's laptop, her PC - all tried on the cable link to my 1GB up/down router.

App updates crawl in whereas anything else I download is amazingly fast.

Then I plug my Macbook Pro onto the same cable and the downloads (which took the best part of an hour on the Windows machines) came down in under a minute on the Mac.

It's not the router or link. I can't believe it's Windows as everything else is as quick as I'd expect.

So is Apple deliberately strangling iTunes on Windows machines to try to get us to move to Mac?

Incidentally, I also have Windows 10 Pro as a dual boot on my Mac and that's just as slow so it's obviously not a hardware issue.

Is this Apple's policy or is there a hidden setting somewhere that we don't know about?

This is the first time I've seen anyone post with the same symptoms I have. I now know it's not a setting I've missed in the PC version of iTunes.

BTW, my MacBook Pro is 6 years old and a basic model ( running 'El Capitan' ). It is still faster than my PC.

Interestingly my iPad Pro 9.7 over wireless at my home can download movies from iTunes about 3-5 times faster than my Mac Mini can download movies from iTunes Store.

Mac Mini is wired to 1GB network.

iPad is wireless to same network.

My Mac Mini has no issues copying other data from internet.

I'm just picturing dozens of underpaid folks running around in the datacenter with usb drives filled with the only copy of the media.

"No plug it in over here... this router needs the Harry Potter series."
"When you're done with it there, we need for downloads on the east coast."

Same issue here - I am struggling to download anything at more than 500-700kB/s (I'm on a 100MB connection) - and I dont think thats anywhere near your 7 Mbps! :O(

Its been rubbish for ages yet Apple say there is no problem. Just wish others would confirm how fast they can download anything from the store!

From what I understand, this entirely has to do with a few factors:

1) The time you are trying to download items. Peak times mean more people, which means the servers have a bunch of people accessing them.

2) Your location. You could either be close to an accessible server for data, or you could be far away. The further away to the server you are having to download from, or the bounces it takes to get you to it, the slower the download is going to be.

3) It really still could be something with your network or anti-virus/etc on your computer. Try, perhaps if you have a firewall or router, to ensure that it is not blocking or slowing down iTunes in any way.

This article may be useful:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3204

Some others that may help:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1379

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1490

When you say you were able to max out your connection what were you actually downloading from the store? My match stuff is (right as we speak) coming down at 240ish kB/s!!