Don't Overcloud Your iCloud...

Have you maxed out on your iCloud storage space? Don’t know how to get more? Or just wondering what on earth iCloud storage even is? Well, it’s your lucky day. We can talk you through the answers to all these questions and more!

What Is iCloud Storage & How Can I Find Out How Much I have Left?

iCloud storage is a virtual store to keep and protect all your data from your Apple devices. This includes important data such as messages, saved photos, videos and documents. The same idea as storage sites such as Dropbox or Google Drive. It’s a service that constantly updates your data and syncs with other Apple devices. This means that if you make a change on one device, that change will then be reflected across all your other Apple devices. For example, if you save that cute selfie on your iphone, you will also find it right there on your ipad. Clever right!? But what if you don’t know how much storage you have? Well read on to find out.

To find out how much storage you have left on an iPhone:

Go to “Settings” on any of your Apple devices
Click on your name
Click on “iCloud”
Click “Manage Storage” and a bar graph will now be displayed showing you how much storage is being used – underneath this you will see a list of apps that show you how much storage they use; these are listed in order of the ones that use the most storage

To find out how much storage you have left on an Mac:

Click on the little black apple icon located in the top left of the screen
Click “System Preferences”
Click “Apple ID” and then select “iCloud” for MacOS 10.15 or later or on MacOS 10.14 or earlier just click on “iCloud”
Click on “Manage” to see more details. You will now see all the apps and how much storage they use on the left. As with above, the apps that use the most storage will be first in the list

To find out how much storage you have left on a Windows PC:

On Windows 10 click on the “Start Menu” and then click on “iCloud”
On Windows 8.1 from the “Start Screen” click on the square “iCloud”
On Windows 7 click on the “Start Menu” then click on “All Programs”, double click on the folder with the word “iCloud” beside it to open this folder and then finally click on the cloud icon with the word “iCloud” beside it

How Do I Know My iCloud Storage Is Full?

You can check the above but you don’t need to. You will automatically receive a message either on your iPhone, iPad or Mac (depending which you use) to alert you to the fact that you have no more storage space left, and if you ignore this, don’t worry, you will get more messages about this until it is resolved!

What Happens When iCloud Storage Is Full?

Apple automatically gives every one of their users 5GB of storage for free. What does that look like in real terms? Well, it’s around 2500 photos, 1000 songs, 2.5 hours of HD video and could be around 15000 documents, depending on the size, mind. Now, this would be quite a lot of storage if this was for each device, however, that’s not the case. This 5GB storage applies to each user, regardless of the number of Apple devices they have. Apple, is therefore relying on you to buy extra storage by upgrading to one of their plans.

When your iCloud storage is full you will no longer be able to back-up your device to iCloud until more storage has been allocated. This means that any new photos or videos will not be uploaded to iCloud or iCloud Drive. It also means that any iCloud apps and messages you have will not stay up-to-date. Perhaps maybe the most important thing to note is that you would no longer be able to send or receive emails with your iCloud email address. You could just pay to get more storage… or learnt to be a little tech savvy.

Do I Need To Upgrade To Get More Storage?

Not necessarily. Despite it looking this way you can actually avoid this by freeing up storage space on your devices.

How Do I Free Up My Storage Without Upgrading?

The easiest ways to do this are:

Delete iCloud photos and videos
Delete any folders and files you no longer need that are stored in iCloud Drive
Delete iCloud text messages and/or attachments
Delete iCloud emails from your email account
Delete Voice memos (voice recordings) saved to iCloud
Reduce the amount of times you back-up your devices
Clear out the ‘Recycle Bin’ as any photos and videos that you delete will be sent here (eating up storage) before being permanently deleted
Select which apps you want backed up in future rather than all apps.

Need help with these steps? Just click here for a step by step guide. But remember to only delete the things you no longer use!

If you need help with your storage, icloud or an alternative, or any other aspect of your website, why not get in touch with our lovely Yellow Cherries today. We’d love to chat!

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