If your Internet Connection suddenly slows down, it’s likely that an app on your computer is consuming your bandwidth in the background. You can check which apps are using Internet over your local network using Task Manager, which may help you figure out where the bandwidth is going.
Start by pressing the Ctrl+Shift+Esc keyboard shortcut to open Task Manager. To expand the window if Task Manager opens in its simplified mode, click the “More details” button in the bottom-left corner.
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You’ll land on the Processes tab, which lists every app currently running on your computer, including Windows internal processes. The current network usage of each app is displayed in Mbps in the table’s rightmost column. To sort the running processes by bandwidth usage, click the column header and sort from highest to lowest.
It’s important to remember that this column displays local network activity rather than Internet usage. In other words, if you’re backing up files to a network-connected hard drive, the program will communicate at several hundred megabits per second over your network, but not over the Internet.
How to Check Which Apps are Using Internet Connection in Windows 10
However, the majority of an app’s network activity will be purely Internet-based. If your Internet connection slows, look in Task Manager for an app that’s communicating at about the same speed as your maximum Internet speed. A Windows system component, such as “Service Host: Local System,” which is responsible for downloading Windows updates, may be the culprit.
Switch to the “App history” tab in Task Manager to see actual data usage details for your apps. The Network column displays your apps’ total network data usage over the previous 30 days.
If you open the Settings app and go to Network > Data usage, you can get more information. This screen shows data usage for both traditional desktop programs and Microsoft Store apps, whereas Task Manager only shows data usage for Microsoft Store apps.
Final Thoughts
Finally, the Data Usage Settings page allows you to control how much data Microsoft Store apps use. To limit what apps can do in the background, select the “Always” radio button under “Background data.” This will free up more bandwidth for your foreground tasks, but it may result in app functionality being lost. You may miss out on incoming notifications and real-time content updates if automatic sync processes, live tiles, and other background network activity are disabled.
