Inspiring

Question

Lightroom Cloud: why are the downloads so slow?

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
August 21, 2025
2 replies
467 views

I've been wanting to do this topic for a while, but lacked the time to actually to proper testing to exclude other factors.

I always found Lr to be pretty much unusable when used in "pure Cloud" mode (not stored locally).

I have investigated and made a video to measure properly the time of downloads.

Each photo takes 10s to load, quite consistently, and they are between 80MB and 90MB.

Taking the biggest file, that's puts the download at 72Mbps. At best.

10 seconds between editing 2 files is really not usable.

And given how aggressively Lr removes any files from the the local storage, after they've been uploaded, I would have expected something a lot faster, for a software that really pushes to be cloud only.

In the past years, I always had a small doubt about my internet connection.

Now that I have 8Gbps, with 936Mbps measured on the iPad (through WiFi 7), nothing else can impact this speed.

I don't get why the download are that slow.

And they're not any better on Mac.

Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Hi @AlexJz,

Thanks for running those detailed tests and sharing your observations. Let’s narrow this down further:

Please update to the latest Lightroom v8.5.1 from the Creative Cloud desktop app and check if you still see the same download speed behavior.
If the slowdown persists, could you copy & paste your System Info (Help > System Info) here?
It would also help if you could share the screen recording and speed test results you mentioned. I can then forward these to the product team for deeper investigation.

Best,

Anshul Saini

A

AlexJzAuthor

Inspiring

I had to put the video on iCloud link, slightly to big to upload here directly.

Hope it works for you: https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/038k_GVPX5ObUCYvEYo7TEupg#ScreenRecording_07-30-2025_14-11-28_1

Speed test on the iPad on WiFi.
But if I connect directly through a Ethernet adapter to get the full 8Gbps of my internet link, that doesn't change anything.

The downloads are way slower that the WiFi 7 here anyway.

I've just tried with the latest release; haven't done a full video, but I'm still at 10s per picture in any case

MacBook Pro 16’’ M1 Pro 16GB on OSX Ventura 13.1

Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Thank you for sharing the video and the speed test results, @AlexJz. I was able to access the iCloud link you provided. I really appreciate the detailed testing you’ve done here.

Please allow me some time to review this with the product team. I’ll share your findings and follow up once I have more insights or next steps from engineering.

Thanks for your patience,

Anshul

A

AlexJzAuthor

Inspiring

Hi @Anshul_Saini I've actually created a post a few days ago on that very same topic: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-ecosystem-cloud-based-discussions/lightroom-cloud-why-are-the-downloads-so-slow/m-p/15469844

I've down actual tests to measure the download speed, and it's absolutely pathetic. Sorry to be that blunt, but 60 to 70Mbps, is slower than most 5G connections, even not in an optimal place.

I also did a speedtest on the exact same moment as the video.

I can give you a video of the syncing/download in question if you want, and speedtest screenshots.

There's clearly a very heavy throtling of the download speed.

But unfortunately, unless you always click on "Store locally" / "Make available offline", Lr is simply UNUSABLE.

This is made even worse by the aggresive nature of Lr purging any files from the local drive: as soon as pictures are uploaded to the cloud, everything is deleted locally, even smart previews.

MacBook Pro 16’’ M1 Pro 16GB on OSX Ventura 13.1

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