If you use Desktop & Documents then you will find everything you file there on iCloud Drive or via the Files app on your Mac or iOS device. To do so, open Settings>Cellular Data> iCloud Drive and toggle ‘Mobile Data’ to Off (it’s Green – On – by default). That’s fine if you can afford the data, but (particularly) if you travel abroad, you may want to disable this.

Hint: iCloud Drive will sync data using your mobile connection unless you tell it not to do so. You can store any file format on iCloud Drive with an upper limit of 50GB. You can buy more storage if you like, or disable the feature in System Preferences>iCloud>iCloud Drive Options – Uncheck Desktop & Documents folders at the top of the list. ICloud Drive lets you open, edit, and sync documents and files across devices. (More information is available here.)Īpple’s macOS will automatically save files saved to your Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud, making these files available across all your devices. That’s useful but will eat into your online drive capacity, particularly as (at 5GB) Apple still doesn’t provide sufficient free drive space. ICloud Drive is automatically set up on any current Apple device running the latest operating system.

The Mac you activate last will create its own folder for the contents of its Documents and Desktop, and this will also sync. If you use iCloud Drive across multiple Macs then changes made to the Documents and Desktop files on both Macs will sync. This is a real file system, so you can create and save items to your own self-created folders, which is useful if you work across multiple devices. Changes applied to a copy of a file on one device will automatically sync across all your other systems. Open Files and you'll find iCloud Drive as a location. On iOS devices, you access your iCloud Drive through the Files app. You can store documents, images and spreadsheets using iCloud Drive you can also keep files and folders up-to-date across devices, work on them, and access these items from anywhere. A PC must run Windows 10 to access iCloud for Windows. You need to be running iOS 13 or later or macOS Catalina or later on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Idrive vs icloud