> 6 iCloud tips for your Mac
Keep favorites safe
Cloud services are generally reliable, but they aren’t perfect. Make sure you have a local backup of your files on an external storage drive, and ideally another one off-site.
Take care when deleting
Cloud-based syncing means you have the same files everywhere; but it also means if you remove something it’s gone from everywhere. Deleted files can be retrieved for up to 30 days.
Enough space
While your first 5GB of storage in iCloud is free, you’ll need to pay a small monthly free for additional storage if you need it. As of macOS High Sierra and iOS 11, you can share iCloud storage across families if you sign up for the 200GB or 2TB tiers.
Get into streaming
You can get back loads of space by simplifying your music collection. Back up and then trash local copies from iTunes, and then stream your favorites from Apple Music instead. Something missing? Restore just that from the backup you created.
Use iBooks
iBooks is useful for decluttering. It supports ePub and PDF formats, so it can house your digital docs, books and comic books, which can all be accessed across all your devices.
Use prior to nuking
Over the page, we talk about performing a clean install on your Mac. Keep your files in iCloud to bring them back quickly once that’s done.