Uploads are the slow half of the internet. You can stream a film in a few clicks, then wait the whole afternoon to send a video back the other way.
That isn’t your imagination. Most home connections are built to download fast and upload slowly, so the number on your plan only tells half the story. This upload time calculator uses your upload speed and the file size to tell you how long to expect, so you can plan the job before you start it.
How to use the Upload Time Calculator#
- Enter the file size. Choose KB, MB, GB or TB.
- Enter your upload speed. Use the upload figure from a speed test, not the headline download speed on your plan.
- Add a speed loss if you want one. Leave it at 0 for the ideal time or enter 10 to 15 for a more cautious estimate.
- Read the result. The time appears in days, hours, minutes and seconds.
Why your upload speed is the number that matters#
Run a speed test and you’ll usually see two figures. Download is how fast data comes to you. Upload is how fast it leaves. On many broadband, cable and mobile connections, upload is a fraction of download, sometimes a tenth. Fibre plans are often symmetrical, so the two match.
If you put your download speed into this calculator, the answer will be far too optimistic. Always use the upload number.
The sum behind it#
Say you have a 10 GB video to send and your upload speed is 20 Mbps. That’s 10,000 MB, or 80,000 megabits. Divide by 20 and you get 4,000 seconds, which is 1 hour 6 minutes 40 seconds.
That’s the ideal case. Real uploads usually run a bit slower, so it’s wise to leave some room. If an upload has to finish before a deadline, add a safety margin of at least a quarter on top.
Upload times at a glance#
Ideal times with no speed loss, using decimal units:
| File size | 5 Mbps | 10 Mbps | 20 Mbps | 50 Mbps | 100 Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 MB | 13 min 20 s | 6 min 40 s | 3 min 20 s | 1 min 20 s | 40 s |
| 2 GB | 53 min 20 s | 26 min 40 s | 13 min 20 s | 5 min 20 s | 2 min 40 s |
| 10 GB | 4 h 27 min | 2 h 13 min | 1 h 7 min | 26 min 40 s | 13 min 20 s |
| 50 GB | 22 h 13 min | 11 h 7 min | 5 h 33 min | 2 h 13 min | 1 h 7 min |
Planning a big first backup#
Cloud backups are where upload speed hurts most, because the first upload is the whole lot at once. Backing up 500 GB over a 20 Mbps connection comes to 200,000 seconds, a little over 2 days and 7 hours of non-stop uploading. Which is why backup tools run quietly in the background and resume where they left off.
If your connection is slow, pick the folders that matter most and send those first. The rest can follow over a few nights.
Making uploads faster#
- Use a cable instead of Wi-Fi if you can. Uploads suffer more than downloads from a weak wireless signal.
- Close other uploads, cloud syncs and video calls while the big file goes up.
- Check whether your video editor or camera can export a smaller file at a quality you’re happy with.
- If your service lets you pause and resume, use it so one dropped connection doesn’t mean starting again.
Mbps and MB/s are not the same#
Internet plans are sold in megabits per second (Mbps), while file sizes are in megabytes or gigabytes. There are 8 bits in a byte, so a 20 Mbps upload speed moves 2.5 megabytes a second at best. A 2 GB file is 16,000 megabits, so at 10 Mbps it takes 1,600 seconds, which is 26 minutes 40 seconds. If you lose 20 percent to overheads and a busy network, the speed falls to 8 Mbps and the time rises to 33 minutes 20 seconds.
| File | At 5 Mbps | At 20 Mbps | At 100 Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photo album (500 MB) | 13 min 20 s | 3 min 20 s | 0 min 40 s |
| Video (2 GB) | 53 min 20 s | 13 min 20 s | 2 min 40 s |
| Phone backup (30 GB) | 13 h 20 min | 3 h 20 min | 40 min 00 s |
| Laptop backup (200 GB) | 88 h 53 min | 22 h 13 min | 4 h 26 min |
The calculator uses decimal units, with 1 GB = 1,000 MB, which matches how providers quote speeds.
Why real uploads run slower than the plan#
The speed on your plan is a maximum. Wi-Fi signal, distance from the router, other devices on the network, the server at the other end and the time of day all reduce it. A wired connection to the router is usually faster and steadier than Wi-Fi. Enter a speed loss of 10 to 30 percent for a realistic estimate, or run a speed test first and use the upload figure it gives you. For large jobs, start overnight, make sure the device will not sleep, and use a service that resumes after an interruption. For downloads, see the download time calculator.
Frequently asked questions#
About 26 minutes and 40 seconds with no speed loss. At 20 Mbps it takes about 6 minutes 40 seconds.
Many consumer internet connections are built asymmetrically, with more capacity for downloads than uploads. Fibre plans are often symmetrical.
Run an online speed test. It reports download and upload separately. Use the upload figure in this calculator.
Multiply the size in megabytes by 8, then divide by the upload speed in megabits per second. The result is in seconds.
It depends on the file size. A 10 GB video takes about 1 hour 7 minutes at 20 Mbps and about 13 minutes at 100 Mbps, before any speed loss.
At 10 Mbps, 1 GB (8,000 megabits) takes 800 seconds, about 13 minutes 20 seconds. At 50 Mbps it takes 2 minutes 40 seconds, and at 2 Mbps it takes over an hour. The speed that matters is your upload speed, not your download speed.