Cloudflare caches requested file ranges without a size knob

Cloudflare’s Origin Range Requests feature fetches missing file regions in cache-aligned chunks and combines them with bytes already cached or downloading. Clients still receive only their requested range. Available through Cache Rules on all plans, the feature removes customer-selected range sizes. It still fetches extra bytes for small reads, and requires a cacheable response plus an origin that supports byte ranges.

Cloudflare · Oct 23, 2026

Why it matters

Large fixed ranges can turn a small video seek or artifact read into substantial upstream traffic.

More context

Try a matching Cache Rule on representative large-file traffic, checking origin bytes, response headers and seek latency. The coordinator checks asset size and entity tags before combining pieces, and can share an in-flight download among requests.

Keep in mind

It does not make uncacheable responses cacheable. Compressed transformations or representation changes can require a full response instead of safely composing ranges.

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