Why are My iTunes Downloads so Slow?

I don't think it's a problem with iTunes in general. I have a 150MB/Sec connection. I'm experiencing the same slow download problem you describe on one machine but not on any of the others on the same network. That leads me to believe that there is something going on with that one mac.

same thing here i usually get about 50mb/s on internet speed tests and i can stream hd video without any issues but iTunes is downloading the iPod software update at about 100 Kb per second. Not sure what is wrong or where to start looking to try to fix it

35 minutes here to download 2.32 Gb. I have a 10Mbps connection that on anything else would eat this kind off side up in around 2 minutes max. This is clearly Apple throttling speed at their end... Abysmal! and as others have pointed out, this has been going on for years.l

I'm trying to download the 10.11.4 update package. The 10.11.0 install took around 10 minutes to install.. This is ridiculous!

Apple have been getting progressively less User Friendly since Steve Jobs passed.... The Watch was supposed to the new next best thing--- where on Earth did they research that one? Mr. Tim has seriously lost the plot! No wonder they saw a loss this quarter and Carl Icahn has bailed on them. I can see this as the start of a trend and a long slippery slow to follow Micro$oft down the chute!ap

Sorry... This is an app store issue... but even so.. just as bad if not worse...

I will literally never buy anything again from the iTunes store. On a 30 mb/sec connection (tested) I have an 8 hour download time for a 2 gig, one hour show! While waiting, I downloaded a 900mb software suite in about 90 seconds. I could understand the wait if I'm sourcing pirated software, but good god, man. The show's going to be on Netflix by the time it's downloaded. It wouldn't even be so bad if their player would stream the already downloaded portion for ****.

Ok, I have 150 mbps download and 12 mbps upload so WHY again does an itunes song from apple servers download soooooo slowly? I have 6 albums waiting to download probably 50 songs waiting... waiting... now for 45 minutes and server has completed 3 song downloads????? Hello? why so slow?

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.

And now...

And now...

And so it goes. Somehow we get through...

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!!

yeah, if only eh?...but I think we all know they won'! 😠