What's hogging my bandwidth? Live Flows and Time Machine Topology
Network 11 shows every active connection through your gateway in real time, labelled with device, app and destination, so a bandwidth hog takes minutes to find. Time Machine Topology then lets you scroll back 24 hours to see which devices joined or dropped off, and when.
You'll need
- Network 11.0.83 or later on UniFi OS 6.0.10 or later.
- A gateway that supports Live Flows: UDM-Pro, UDM-SE, UDM-Pro-Max, UDW, UDM-Beast, UCG-Max, UCG-Fiber, UXG-Pro, UXG-Max, UXG-Fiber, UXG-Enterprise, EFG or EF-Core.
- Live Flows isn't available on the UCG-Ultra, UCG-Industrial, UDR, UDR7, UDR-5G-Max, original UDM, Express, Express 7 or UXG-Lite. Most of these lack flow history too.
- Traffic Identification switched on, so flows show app names. Older versions keep it at Settings › System › Advanced; check the location on 11.
The tools at a glance
| Tool | Where | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Live Flows | Insights (live view) | What is each device doing right now? |
| Flow history | Insights › Flows | What happened earlier? |
| Client Observability (10.5+) | A client's details | How has this device behaved over the last 24 hours? |
| Time Machine Topology | Topology page | Which devices joined or left recently? |
| Topology Spotlight (10.6+) | Topology page | Where do these particular clients sit on the network? |
| WiFi Airtime graph (10.4+) | Dashboard | Is the bottleneck the internet link or the Wi-Fi? |
Find the hog, step by step
- Locate the bottleneck. On the Dashboard, compare WAN throughput with the WiFi Airtime graph. A full internet link and a busy radio need different fixes.
- Sort clients by usage. In the client list, sort by current traffic to spot the busiest device.
- Watch it live. Open Live Flows in Insights and filter by the suspect device. Network 11 shows each flow's application and, for allowed flows, the policy that allowed it.
- Look back. Switch to Insights › Flows, widen the time range and filter by application. This shows whether the traffic is a one-off or a pattern. Earlier versions offered a CSV export here.
- Check the device's own timeline. Client Observability (Network 10.5) charts 24 hours of signal, retries, latency, packet loss, roaming, app usage and flows for each client.
- Act. End the flow for quick relief; that only closes the current connection. For a lasting fix, block the client or add a Policy Table rule (see our VLAN and External Network Lists guides).
- Get warned next time. In Alarm Manager, create a High Traffic alarm for that device (see our new-device alerts guide).
- Confirm. In Live Flows, the flow is gone and doesn't come back.
Rewind the network with Time Machine Topology
Open the Topology page and switch on Time Machine; Ubiquiti hasn't documented the control's exact label. Drag back through its history to see when devices joined or left, and what changed just before a device dropped off.
Topology Spotlight, added in Network 10.6, filters the map to the clients you choose and collapses the rest. It's the quickest way to find one device on a large network.
How much history you get
Flow history is capped by the number of log entries stored, not by days. Ubiquiti published these caps before Network 11:
| Hardware | Flow log entries kept |
|---|---|
| UDM Pro, UCG Max, UCG Fiber, UniFi OS Server | 10,000 |
| UDM SE, UDW, or the models above with added storage | 500,000 |
| UDM Pro Max | 1,000,000 |
| EFG, Cloud Hosting | 10,000,000 |
| Cloud Key Enterprise | 20,000,000 |
On a busy network, 10,000 entries may cover only a short period.
Watch out for
- Stay current. Network 11.0.94 fixed the Collect Client Stats setting being ignored.
- Log the rules you care about. Network 11 adds a Flows Logging option on each firewall policy; turn it on for block rules you want to audit.
Sources: Network 11 announcement · Network release notes · Traffic flows · Traffic identification · Network 10.4 · Network 10.5 · Network 10.6 · Alarm Manager
Disclaimer: This guide reflects UniFi software and official documentation as of 22 October 2026. Menus, features, plans and policies change, so check each step on your own equipment and back up first. It's general information, not legal advice, and you use it at your own risk. UniFi is a trademark of Ubiquiti Inc., and other names belong to their owners.