Have you ever needed to get a new phone, but all of your photos, notes, and contacts were lost in the switch? If you have felt that pain—or want to avoid it—iCloud is your friend. If you make use of iCloud Drive or a paid iCloud+ plan, you can back up valuable information, documents, and images wirelessly to the internet, where it can be easily accessed and downloaded from any device.
Apple automatically provides every user with 5GB of free iCloud storage. You can use this storage to back up apps, images, videos, or documents. But 5GB fills up fast; US users can get additional storage(Opens in a new window) of 50GB for $0.99 per month, 200GB for $2.99, and 2TB for $9.99.
As a subscriber to Apple One, you also get extra iCloud storage bundled with other Apple services, such as Apple Music, Apple TV+, Fitness+, and more.
What Does iCloud Backup Include?
When iCloud is used to back up your phone, you are saving the following pieces of data:
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App data
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Apple Watch backups
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Device settings
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Home screen organization
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iMessage, SMS, and MMS messages
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Photos and videos
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Purchase history from Apple services
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Ringtones
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Visual Voicemail password
You can also select exactly what data is synced to iCloud storage. Open to Settings > [your name] > iCloud on your phone and tap the Show All link under Apps Using iCloud section. Items like Calendars, Contacts, Health, Photos, Reminders, Wallet, and more can be enabled or disabled from here.
How to Back Up Your Device to iCloud
To automatically back up your device each day, head to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and enable iCloud Backup. The device will then back up your data when it is connected to power, locked, on Wi-Fi, and iCloud has enough storage space.
Once iCloud Backup is enabled, you can choose to manually back up the device at any time by clicking the Back Up Now button that appears. This will immediately have iCloud preserve a new backup. Here, you can also see the last time your device was successfully backed up.
Sync Pictures to iCloud
Making sure your beloved photos and videos are getting backed up to iCloud can be confusing, but you can do it with in just a few steps with iCloud Photos. Open Settings > Photos and enable iCloud Photos. This will automatically upload your library to iCloud, including iCloud.com(Opens in a new window), where you can view and download photos on a computer.
If you take photos on one Apple device, like your iPhone, and want to view them on another Apple device, like your iPad, turn on My Photo Stream. Then, the next time your Apple devices are connected to Wi-Fi, photos taken on one gadget will show up on all the others with the same Apple ID.
Upload Photos to iCloud
You can also add individual photos to iCloud Drive if you go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and enable iCloud Drive. Open the Photos app, select a picture or video, tap the Share icon, and select Save to Files > iCloud Drive > Save, which will send the image to the Files app.
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On a Mac or PC, go to iCloud.com and sign in using your Apple ID. Here, you can click the icon for Photos or iCloud Drive and upload photos and videos.
How to Manage Your iCloud Storage
Note that you will only be able to back up your device if there is enough iCloud storage space. You can make sure your account has enough available space under Settings > [your name] > iCloud. Much like if you were managing on-device storage, there is a graph showing how much space is available on iCloud.
Tap the Manage Storage Account link to see a list of individual apps that are included in the backup. Each entry will say how much data it takes up, allowing you to see what is eating up the most storage. To free up space, tap an entry and set the data to be deleted from iCloud.
You can manage your iCloud storage plan from this screen, if you find that you simply need to pay for more space. Unfortunately, those looking for free cloud storage are running out of options. Google Photos has killed off its unlimited storage, but Amazon Photos still offers unlimited photo storage for Prime members.
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