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Persistent issue: upload speeds are incredibly slow for years
Dropbox upload speeds are incredibly slow. Issue persists for years. Dropbox mods shut down discussions
I have seen complaints from many people that Dropbox upload speeds are incredibly slow. Often less than 50 kBps. I have experienced this issue intermittently for years, but over the past 3 months it has become a daily problem. Many temporary fixes have been posted, but I have yet to see any permanent solution. Common to most reports is that this issue doesn't affect other cloud services, so it's clearly a problem with Dropbox and not with people's caches, system preferences, browsers, or ISPs. I can confirm this: when my Dropbox uploads slow to a crawl, my Google Drive upload speeds are 100x faster for same file.
I have found that these steps will sometimes resolve the problem but it now recurs after a day or 2:
1. Quit dropbox app
2. plug ethernet cable into laptop
3. turn off laptop wifi
4. Restart modem & router
5. Restart dropbox app
This temporary fix seems to last a bit longer: logging out of dropbox, uninstalling and reinstalling dropbox, then logging back in. But this results in a very lengthy re-indexing process, so it's not something I want to be doing on a regular basis.
You can see a couple of the past discussions, starting 6 years ago:
https://www.dropboxforum.com/discussions/101001014/ridiculously-slow-upload-speeds/395342
https://www.dropboxforum.com/discussions/101001014/upload-app-sync-speed-is-very-slow-on-macos-/801174
Despite being marked "solved" this is an ongoing issue. The OP of the second discussion requested that mods remove the "solved" flag, but they refused and subsequently blocked new comments in the discussion: https://www.dropboxforum.com/discussions/101001014/upload-app-sync-speed-is-very-slow-on-macos-/801174/replies/824433
Dropbox staff person Hannah has been involved in both these discussions so mods are definitely aware that this is an issue that has persisted for years.
What's going on? For many years Dropbox was a great service, but it really seems like they're neglecting their core service. Is the only solution moving to a different cloud storage service?
5 Replies
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Hey alex g.33, thanks for the info here.
I see you mentioned you're running the 193.4.5594 version of the app, but the current stable version out is 219.4.4463; can you try updating the app, to see if that helps?
- Walter
Hi alex g.33, thank you for sharing your feedback and sorry to hear that you've been experiencing slow upload speeds for the past few months.
To clarify, are you encountering slow upload speeds only when using the Dropbox desktop app, or does this also occur on the Dropbox website?
Since this has been an intermittent issue for some time, have you previously contacted our support team for assistance? If so, please share your ticket ID, and I'll gladly review it.
Additionally, have you tried using a different network or device, or performing an advanced reinstall to see if that resolves the issue?
To help me troubleshoot further, please provide the following information:
1. Your device's operating system version
2. The version of the Dropbox desktop app you're currently using
3. The web browser you're uploading from (if applicable).Thank you for your cooperation, Alex. I appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this.
