How to sync a Monero (XMR) wallet faster

We get it, syncing your Monero wallet sucks. One unfortunate consequence of Monero’s privacy protections is that your wallet needs to iterate through the blockchain activity to see if any transactions are associated with it. Fortunately, there are a few tips and tricks that will help you sync your Monero wallet faster so that you can spend funds when you need to!

Make sure your wallet is up to date

The Monero protocol and Monero wallets are updated regularly with performance improvements. You should make sure that your wallet is up to date. Some Monero updates have sped up syncing more than 30%!

Check your network connection

Network connections can sometimes be finnicky, especially if you are using Tor, a VPN, or an ISP that is prone to throttling. Try turning off Tor and/or your VPN if you have it on, and try a different connection if possible. If you have a very slow and unreliable connection, your wallet will not be able to sync quickly.

Use a modern wallet with background syncing

Modern Monero wallets such as Cake Wallet support background syncing. Try switching to Cake Wallet or another wallet with background syncing. After the initial sync after restoring a wallet (which will still be long), you should spend a lot less time syncing after opening your wallets.

Monero background syncing has some limitations, but it’s a great option for most people. You can change to the Aggressive background sync setting to further reduce sync times.

Periodically sync your wallet

Long sync times usually occur if you have not used your Monero wallet in a while. We recommend opening your Monero wallet at least once a month to let it sync. That way, you are never syncing for more than a few moments. This is especially the case for Monero wallets that do not support background syncing.

Set a restore height

If you are waiting a long while for your wallet to sync after a restore, you should consider cancelling the restore and starting again with a specified restore height. A restore height allows your wallet to skip over all the Monero transaction records that occured before you made your wallet. This can sometimes save you hours of time! Some wallets such as Cake Wallet allow you to conveniently add a restore date, which will then automatically pick the correct restore height for you.

Cake Wallet automatically encodes a restore height into the restore QR codes generated in-app, which saves you a lot of time.

Run your own node locally

If you are syncing at home, you can sync extremely quickly if you are syncing with a Monero node on your own local network. Check out our guide on how to run a Monero node. Further, you can mark your own Monero node as trusted, which speeds up syncing even more!

Use a modern device

If you need consistent access to your Monero, you should make sure that you are syncing with a modern device. Extremely slow CPU cores and a slow hard drive can lead to prolonged sync times. Make sure you are using a modern phone within the last 4 years, or a computer with 4 or more CPU cores and an SSD for the fastest syncing experience. You can sync Monero wallets on older and slower devices, but you will need a bit more patience.

Transfer all funds to a new wallet

Suppose you have an old Monero wallet that you made back in 2014 and that you are still using. If you need to restore that wallet somewhere, syncing is going to take a while, even on modern hardware. Consider instead making a new Monero wallet and transfer all funds to this new wallet. Now, you only need to restore the history from today onward, and you can skip all the previous years of data to sync much faster.