How to Prevent Apps Killing your Bandwidth

Most of us rely on tools like Dropbox or other large file-sharing apps in our daily work. We’re also familiar with the frustration they can cause when they slow down your internet connection. Fortunately, Windows and many routers offer a solution called Quality of Service (QoS). This feature lets you prioritize specific applications and their data, making sure important tasks get the bandwidth they need even when your network is busy.

Note: Your router must support QoS or have it enabled.

How to

1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor by opening the systems ‘run’ window (win+r) and enter:

gpedit.msc

2. In the Local Group Policy Editor, on the left panel, navigate to ‘Computer Configuration/Windows Settings/Policy-based QoS’. Right click on ‘Policy-based QoS’ and select ‘Create new policy …’.

3. In the window that opens. Apply the following:
Policy name: Give the name of your policy. For example ‘Dopbox QoS’.
Specify DSCP Value: This is the network priority. For Dropbox I have set the value to 5.

DSCP ValuePriority LevelTypical Use Case
0Best Effort (Default)Standard traffic without priority.
1-10Low PriorityBackground tasks, bulk file transfers.
11-30Medium PriorityStandard interactive apps, non-critical business apps.
31-45High PriorityLatency-sensitive apps like video streaming or gaming.
46Expedited ForwardingVoice over IP (VoIP), video calls.
47-63Reserved/ExperimentalRarely used, customizable for specific environments.

4. On the next page select ‘Only applications with this executable name:’ and enter ‘Dropbox.exe’

5. On the last page. Make sure you select both the ‘TCP and UDP’ protocal.

For this to apply immediately, you might have to force a Group Policy refresh. To do so, open a command prompt as an administrator and enter:

gpupdate /force

Application Overview

Dropbox.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 10)
GoogleDriveFS.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 10)
OneDrive.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 10)
Creative Cloud.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 10)
steam.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 10)
EpicGamesLauncher.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 15)
Unity Hub.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 15)
p4v.exe (recommended DSCP Value: 25)

Wireless Multimedia and DSCP values

The Wi-Fi Alliance’s WMM certification prioritizes Wi-Fi traffic into four categories: voice (VO), video (VI), best effort (BE), and background (BK), from highest to lowest priority. It also defines DSCP values for each category.

DSCP ValueWMM Access Category
48-63Voice (VO)
32-47Video (VI)
24-31, 0-7Best effort (BE)
8-23Background (BK)