iCloud Drive
Store your most important data using iCloud
When a device is signed in to iCloud using your Apple ID, certain data, such as calendars and contacts, is kept in sync between the
device and Apple’s servers. This keeps the data consistent across all your devices. With the advent of iCloud Drive, you can store files online in a similar way.
Your iCloud account comes with 5GB of free storage, which you can increase by paying a small monthly subscription (see ‘iCloud Storage’ opposite).
Once iCloud Drive is enabled, any files stored there are uploaded to Apple’s servers. In addition, you can manage your storage so that any files saved to your Desktop and Documents folders are also stored in iCloud. Certain iCloudenabled apps, such as Pages and Numbers, will also automatically save documents to iCloud Drive unless you specifically tell them to save to your Mac’s local storage. And you can use iCloud Photo Library to store the contents of the Photos app online.
If you want to use iCloud Drive, first head to System Preferences > iCloud and sign in with your Apple ID. Check to make sure iCloud Drive is ticked. Follow the steps in the walkthrough below to optimise your storage.
One of the biggest misconceptions about enabling iCloud Drive is that it will automatically back up all of your data. This is most probably because iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads do indeed back up everything to iCloud if you enable that feature. If you want to be sure a file is saved to iCloud either use a supported app or move your data into the iCloud Drive folder in Finder.
iCloud Photo Library
The Photos app’s iCloud Photo Library feature is a way to store your pictures and videos online. Anything added to the library on your Mac (and other devices on which you enable the feature) is uploaded to the online repository in full quality. You can enable this feature in either Photos’ or iCloud’s prefs, and it provides two options for the quality of the versions kept on your Mac.
The first keeps them at full quality too, but inevitably this takes up more space. With Optimise Mac Storage
selected, if your Mac starts to run low on storage, Photos will reduce the quality of local copies so they are merely optimised for viewing on that device’s screen. This saves on local storage, but also means you need to be connected to the internet to retrieve and edit the original files.
iCloud Photo Library is not enabled by default – follow the steps in the guide on the opposite page to start using it.
iCloud Photo Sharing in Photos’ preferences enables you to share pics from your library with other people. This doesn’t use additional iCloud storage.
Certain Mac apps will automatically save files to iCloud Drive if you are signed in to iCloud. These include the iWork suite – Pages, Keynote and Numbers. By default, when you create a new iWork document, it’s saved to iCloud. This enables you to work on documents on any device that’s connected to your iCloud account.
Not all apps incorporate this feature. To check which ones do, use the Manage feature mentioned in ‘iCloud Storage’ to the right. If an app isn’t listed, you can save a file from any app to iCloud Drive anyway by changing its save location. You can also copy or move files to iCloud Drive from any folder, which makes them available on all your connected devices.
iCloud Music Library
If you have an iTunes Match or Apple Music subscription, you can store all your music online and access it on other devices without syncing them with your Mac. This includes music that you didn’t purchase from the iTunes Store, such as songs imported from a CD.
The online library can store up to 100,000 such tracks. If a track is available from the iTunes Store, Apple links your online library to that copy rather than uploads yours. Songs that are uploaded are in AAC format, compressed to 256Kbps. iCloud Music Library doesn’t count towards your iCloud storage limit.
Using iCloud Music Library isn’t a backup solution in itself, as not all tracks will necessarily upload; for instance, you can’t store songs over 200MB in size in iCloud. Make sure to back up your Mac using something like Time Machine (see page 36) before enabling it.
As its name suggests, iCloud Music Library is not designed to store other kinds of media, such as videos. Films and TV shows bought from the iTunes Store can be downloaded again at any time if you’ve deleted them for space. You could put such files in an iCloud Drive folder, but being large they could take a while to upload. Consider a different backup method, such as to an external drive.
Certain Mac apps, such as Pages, will automatically save to iCloud Drive