All About: iCloud

Apple’s iCloud helps to sync all of your important data and sync it throughout all of your iCloud devices. You can sync your Photos, Mail, Contacts, calendar, reminders, notes, Safari, News, Home, Health, Wallet, Game Center, Siri, keychain, Find My iPhone, iCloud Backup, iCloud Drive, and some third-party apps. Apple only gives you 5GB for free anything more and you will have to pay a monthly storage subscription. Some of these apps use this 5GB and some don’t. So here is everything you need to know about your online storage.
For each of these options, you will have the choice to enable or disable them. Please click on the links for a better understanding.

Photos

  • My Photo Stream: iCloud Photo Stream will copy up to 1,000 pictures one the past 30 days to all of your iCloud devices
  • iCloud Photo Library: This will upload a full copy of all of your pictures to the cloud. Be careful though this can use all of your free 5GB so if you plan on using this feature you might want to think about purchasing more cloud storage from Apple. 
  • iCloud Photo Sharing: With this, you can share up to 5,000 photos and videos with other users. You can either choose to make a public link or share it individually with other iCloud users. Using photo sharing will not go against your 5GB limit.

(Because “My Photo Stream” and “iCloud Photo Sharing” don’t use your free 5GB of iCloud storage Apple has placed limits. Click here to read about them.)

Mail

If you have an iCloud.com email all of the emails that you receive will be stored in the cloud and will also use your free 5GB.

Contacts

Syncing your contacts will make them available on all of your iCloud devices and at iCloud.com. So for example when you get an email on your phone the sender’s name will appear on all of your devices.

Calendar

Syncing your Calendar events will make them available on all of your iCloud devices and at iCloud.com. So for example, if you add an event on your iPhone it will also be on your iMac and iPad.

Reminders

Syncing your Reminders will make them available on all of your iCloud devices and at iCloud.com. So for example, if you add a reminder on your iPhone it will send you a notification on your iPhone and on all of your iCloud devices.

Notes

Syncing your Notes will make all of your iCloud notes available on all of your iCloud devices and at iCloud.com. So for example, if you make a note on your iPhone you can continue that note on all of your other iCloud devices and at iCloud.com.

Safari

Syncing your Safari to the cloud includes your history, tabs, and bookmarks to all of your iCloud devices. So for example, if you open a site and bookmark it on your iPhone on all of your other iCloud devices the site should appear in your history, the bookmark added, and you should be able to open it in when you go into tabs.

News

Syncing your News to the cloud includes your subscriptions, saved stories, and Siri suggestions to all of your iCloud devices. So for example, if you view and save a story that story will now be saved across all of your iCloud devices. It will also add the story to your history so it can recommend other stories you may like.

Home

When enabled when you add one HomeKit enabled device to home it will be added to all of your other devices to everyone who shares the home.

Health

(iOS 11 and up)
Syncing your health data will save all of your data imported into the health app to the cloud. Now the next time that you have to restore your phone or someone steals it is all still safe in the cloud.

Wallet

Syncing your wallet cards will sync only reward cards and gift cards but not credit cards. So once again if something happens to your iPhone and you are forced to restore you don’t have to add each card one by one.

Game Center

Siri

Keychain

Like 1Password and other apps you can, you can save and sync all of your passwords to the cloud. With those apps, you have to copy and paste your passwords into the corresponding fields. Not with iCloud Keychain. With Keychain it will autofill your logins in Safari and in 3rd-party apps.

Find My iPhone

Find my iPhone you can track the location of all of your iCloud enabled devices. This includes actions like lost mode, sound, or remotely erase.

iCloud Backup

This is the one that most people get error notifications. iCloud Backup will back up your iOS devices to the cloud. The catch is though its that it uses your free 5GB of cloud storage. If you plan on using this you have to purchase more cloud storage because chances are your backup is larger than 5GB.

iCloud Drive

iCloud Drive is like any other cloud-based storage platform. You can sync any file and it will be copied to all of your other iCloud devices and at iCloud.com.

3rd-Party Apps

When 3rd-party apps Dave data in the cloud it’s usually your app data that will sync between all of your iCloud devices but careful because this will also use your free 5GB.