I actually had 2 problems:
#1:
Yes, I do have other things connected. Most importantly, the JTAG pins are connected to an ESP-PROG. When I plug the dev board in without anything else connected it does indeed work in QIO mode using Visual Studio Code. Thanks for that.

I assumed that since the flash ...

I'm aware of this and I have tried it. When I select QIO it can't load the partition table:

rst:0x3 (SW_RESET),boot:0x13 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
configsip: 188777542, SPIWP:0xee
clk_drv:0x00,q_drv:0x00,d_drv:0x00,cs0_drv:0x00,hd_drv:0x00,wp_drv:0x00
mode:DIO, clock div:2
load:0x3fff0030,len:7368
load ...

I'm looking for information on the embedded flash memory speed for the ESP32-MINI-1 Module. My M1 devkit says that it is running in DIO mode when it boots. Is this really true? I would expect the embeeded flash to operate in QIO mode.