How to Fix a Slow Download Speed on Steam for Windows

Are games taking several hours to download on Steam due to slow download speed? While there’s not much you can do when the internet is slow, you can make some tweaks in Steam Settings and Windows to speed up the download process if you think it should be faster.

So here are some ways to get faster download speed on Steam for Windows.

1. Check for internet problems

Before blaming the Steam client, make sure your internet connection isn’t slow and taking Steam longer than usual to download your games. Testing your connection speed is the best way to confirm this. You can test your connection on any speed test website.

If your download speed is slower than usual, read our article that explains how to increase your internet speed. If this helps get your internet speed back to normal, try downloading games on Steam again. If nothing seems to work, contact your internet service provider (ISP).

When your internet is working fine and everything but Steam games is downloading at a good speed, it’s time to delve deeper into your system.

2. Make sure Steam has sufficient bandwidth

First, you should allocate as much bandwidth as possible to the Steam app. You can do this by temporarily closing other downloads running in parallel, closing resource-intensive browsers, checking that you’re not streaming content, and closing all apps that use the Internet.

You can use Task Manager (CTRL + Shift + Esc) to determine which processes are using the most network resources. Look in the network Collapse and close all non-essential apps that consume a lot of data.

Also, make sure that Steam’s efficiency mode is not enabled, which makes it a lower priority process. For more information on how to confirm this and turn off efficiency mode, see our efficiency mode article.

3. Disable Windows metered connection

Windows offers users a metered connection option to limit their own bandwidth usage. While it helps save data when you’re under a data cap, it can limit how apps use the available bandwidth. Therefore, a metered connection can slow down your downloads on Steam.

To make sure it’s not enabled, do the following:

1. Right click on the window beginning button and go to settings.
2. Select in the left sidebar Network & Internet.
3. Click on Wireless Internet access.
4. Click on your WiFi connection.
5. Disable the switch next to Measured connection.

4. Disable your VPN

The encryption and protocol of your VPN and your distance from the server can drastically affect your internet speeds. So if you access the Steam client with the VPN enabled, your game may take a long time to download. As such, it might be worth disabling the VPN and seeing if that helps.

5. Make sure Steam is not throttling its own bandwidth

Steam allows users to limit its bandwidth to give other apps more space to use the internet. While it’s convenient, you should disable this limit if you want to speed up the download.

Follow the steps below to remove Steam bandwidth limit:

1. Start Steam.
2. In the top left corner, click the steam tap and select settings.
3. Select in the left sidebar Downloads.
4. In the right pane, uncheck the box for Limit bandwidth to.

6. Clear the download cache in Steam

Like many apps, Steam stores temporary download data in a download cache. When clogged, it can affect Steam performance, blocking the app from running properly and slowing down your downloads. Therefore, deleting it could speed up your downloads again.

Be careful though; If you have downloaded mods, completing this step will delete them. As such, you might want to skip this if you’ve downloaded mods recently.

To clear Steam’s download cache, follow these steps:

1. Start Steam.
2. In the top left corner, click the steam tap and select settings.
3. Select in the left sidebar Downloads.
4. In the right pane, click Clear download cache.

5. After the process is complete, restart the app.

7. Change the download server location

The speed of Steam downloads is greatly affected by the location of the server you are getting them from. By default, Steam will connect you to the closest server to give you a better connection, but if it’s overloaded with traffic, it may not offer the best speed.

Using a global traffic map on Steam’s download stats website, you can see which servers are closest, have less traffic, and offer good download speeds. Once you’ve decided on a server, follow these steps to change region in Steam:

1. Start Steam.
2. In the top left corner, click the steam tap and select settings.
3. Select in the left sidebar Downloads.
4. In which download region Select your preferred region from the drop-down menu.

While other servers may offer better download speeds, you can also wait for the server closest to you to drop the load and download the game later. However, if changing the region does not improve the download speed at all, then move on to the next step.

8. Disable download throttling

The Steam app throttles downloads if you set it up while streaming so you can stream at the best speed. That means you get good performance at the cost of slow download speeds. If your downloads are getting slow, that could explain the problem.

To disable download throttling, follow these steps:

1. Start Steam.
2. In the top left corner, click the steam tap and select settings.
3. Select in the left sidebar Downloads.
4. Uncheck the box for Throttle downloads while streaming.

Check if disabling throttling helps speed up Steam downloads. If not, as a last resort, disable your antivirus and Windows Defender.

9. Disable your antivirus and Windows Defender

Disabling your antivirus and Windows Defender can also help improve your internet speeds. Our article explaining how to optimize Steam download speed on Windows can help you to do it.

Download games faster on Steam

By implementing the fixes mentioned in the article, you should be able to speed up your Steam downloads. If none of them seem to work, the problem may be outside your computer and on your network. So it’s a good idea to make sure your network is running as well as it should.