iCloud Options

Introduction: Now, let’s take a look at our iCloud options we have with the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. When you first created a new account, the Mac asked you to enter your iCloud or your Apple ID. It did this to connect your iCloud to your Mac. What does this mean? Let’s find out.

iCloud Preferences: The first thing we need to do is go to our System Preferences. What I’m going to do is I’m going to click on iCloud here. This is where we can see all the different services that iCloud has to offer. It’s also where we can go and purchase more space. Click on it. We can see my iCloud details here, and over to the right, we have all of the different services.

iCloud Drive: Our first one here is iCloud Drive. What we can do is we can keep certain folders on iCloud Drive. Now, what’s the advantage of this? If you have a couple of Macs, or if you have an iPhone or an iPad, you can access iCloud Drive. If I put something in my Pages folder, which is an iCloud Drive, let’s go ahead and open up my iCloud Drive. I’m going to go to command in, and we’re going to go to iCloud Drive. We have all of these folders here. I put something in Pages. I’ll be able to access it in Pages on my iPhone or my iPad. This is how I keep my Numbers spreadsheet. I can access it from any one of my computers or anyone of my iOS devices.

Desktop & Documents in iCloud: We also have the option to store our desktop and documents. I’m going to click on this, and you’re going to see we have Desktop & Documents Folders. When I select this, my desktop folder and my documents folder will be stored in iCloud. Now, I’ll be able to access anything that I put on the Desktop from my other computers. It’ll show up on the desktop of my other computers. Anything in my documents folder will be in my documents folder on my other computers. This is how I use it on my personal account. I have a MacBook Pro, and I have this iMac. If I have something that I need to access on both computers, I put it on the desktop or in my documents folder.

Below that, we have the other apps that can use iCloud Drive, including third-party apps. If you no longer want to allow an app to use iCloud Drive, you can de-select it. Then, Apple no longer uses iCloud Drive. I’m going to click on Done. With Photos, we can sync our photos across all of our different devices. Let’s click on Options. I can set if I want to use iCloud Photos. Any photos that I add on my Mac here, or if I edit them on my Mac, will show up on my other devices. If I go and take a photo on my iPhone, it will show up on my Mac. I go and edit that photo. The edited photo will show back up on my iPhone.

My Photo Stream: Then, we have My Photo Stream, which allows you to import recent photos from your different devices without using iCloud Photos. I recommend people to use iCloud Photos. With iCloud Photos, it’ll sync all of your different edits. It syncs high-res versions of your photos. With My Photo Stream, it doesn’t sync your photos across all your different devices. All you can do is import them. If you make any change in your photos, it is not going to show, or those changes are not going to show on any of your other devices. All you’re doing is just importing your photos from your Photo Stream. It doesn’t sync any changes. It doesn’t sync all of your photos. If you want to have all of your photos on all of your devices, I recommend using iCloud Photos.

Shared Albums: We also have Shared Albums. This is where we can go and share albums via iCloud Drive. I’m going to click on Done.

iCloud Mail: We have Mail. If you do not want to use the iCloud.com Mail, you can turn this off. Let’s say you’re using Gmail. You did not have to use Apple’s iCloud Mail.

Contacts, Calendars, and Reminders: We also have our Contacts, Calendars, and Reminders. This will sync all of our contacts, events, as well as reminders across all our different devices.

Safari, Notes, and Siri: We have Safari, Notes, and Siri. With Safari, it’ll sync all of our bookmarks and reading lists. With Notes, it’ll sync all of our different notes across all our devices. With Siri, Apple uses some machine learning. The more you use Siri, the better it gets. It will share what it has learned across all your different devices.

Keychain: We also have Keychain. When we enter a username and password into a website, the Mac will ask you if it wants to save that username and password, and then it will share that with your other devices.

Find My Mac: We have Find My Mac. This is off by default because I’m using it on another account, but you want to make sure that this is checked. Then if you lose your Mac, you can log into iCloud.com and find your Mac. Again, the reason it’s off on my computer is because it’s on a different account. You can only have it on in one account.

News, Stock, and Home: Then we also have News, Stocks, and Home. This is new to macOS Mojave. Now what I can do is I can sync my news across all my devices, including my Mac, my stocks, my stock watch list, as well as my home, which is my home kit devices. I have my living room lights set up as a home kit device. Now, what I can do is I can turn them on and off from any one of my devices, including my Mac.

Buying more iCloud Space or Storage: Depending on how you use iCloud on your Mac, you may run out of space. This happens quite a bit when you sync your photos across all your different devices because photos can take up a lot of space. Apple gives you five gigabytes for free. What happens when you run out of space?

You can purchase more space from Apple. The next upgrade plan is 99¢ a month, and they give you 50 gigabytes. To purchase more space, you have to click on Manage, and then you can purchase more space. Again, they start at 99¢ for 50 gigabytes.

If you use iCloud Photos, which I recommend, you may run out of space. If you do, you can purchase the next plan for 99¢ a month. In my experience, that seems to work for most people. Of course, you can always upgrade for more space as well.

That’s a look at iCloud and how it works on the Mac.