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Calculators

How long will this download take?

Download Time Calculator

You want to know how long you will be waiting before a download finishes.

Is this happening to you?

  • A game or update needs to be ready before this evening.
  • You are not sure whether to start a download now or overnight.
  • The speed number on your plan tells you nothing about waiting time.

Enter a file size and a speed to see how long the download should take.

Start here

Does this sound familiar?

Three ordinary evenings that end up on this page.

  • Friends are coming over to play at seven.

    The game update is still only half done.

    Work out beforehand whether you have enough time.

  • A very large film starts downloading.

    Everyone else in the home notices it straight away.

    Decide whether to start it now or overnight.

  • A download says two hours remaining.

    You cannot tell whether that is normal.

    Compare it with what your speed should give you.

Can this help me?

Yes, if you know roughly how big the file is and how fast your connection runs.

Why would I use this?
A speed in Mbps is hard to picture, but a waiting time is not.
When should I use this?
Use it before you start a large download or a system update.
What will I learn?
You learn what your measured speed means in minutes and hours.

What it will not tell you: It cannot promise a time, because other devices and busy hours change the answer.

Start here

The size shown by the download.

Use your measured download speed.

Result

About 16 minutes

This is an estimate under similar conditions. We assume a transfer reaches 85 percent of the measured speed.

What does this mean for me?

Here is how to read the numbers you get back.

  • The result is the waiting time you should expect under similar conditions.
  • It is a little longer than simple arithmetic, because real transfers never reach full speed.
  • If your actual wait is far longer, something is slowing the connection down.

Everyday use

Sizes and speeds are easier to judge with a familiar example.

  • Large PlayStation game · 100 GB

    Modern console games often reach about 100 GB.

  • Holiday photos · 5 GB

    A week of phone photos is roughly 5 GB.

  • An HD film · 4 GB

    One HD film download is around 4 GB.

What should I do?

  1. Measure your real speed first, then put that number in here.
  2. Start very large downloads when nobody else needs the connection.
  3. If the wait looks unreasonable, test your connection again.

What happens if I ignore this?

If you do nothing, you keep starting long downloads at the worst moment.

Common questions

Why is the estimate longer than a simple division?
We assume a real transfer reaches about 85 percent of the measured speed.
Will my download really take this long?
It is an estimate under similar conditions, not a promise.

Learn more

These articles explain the idea behind this tool.

Technical details

The words behind the numbers, in case you want them. You do not need any of this to use the tool.

GB
Gigabyte, the size of a file. A film is roughly four of them.
Mbps
How much data moves each second. Eight of these fill about one megabyte.

What you enter

  • File size (GB) — The size shown by the download.
  • Download speed (Mbps) — Use your measured download speed.

What you get back

  • Estimated time — A rounded waiting time.

Norynt writes its own explanations. External documentation is listed only so you can verify what you read here.

Technical references

The information in this article is based on publicly available technical documentation and networking research. You do not need to read any of it to understand the article.

Measurement Lab(1)

The open measurement platform Norynt runs its speed tests on.