The ease of sharing files and content has become a part and parcel of everyone’s lives. However, what do you know about Apple’s iCloud Drive?
The availability of Dropbox and Google Drive had proven to be a sigh of relief for the professionals, especially during the times of COVID-19 pandemic.
Collaborating on projects, syncing, and sharing has become much easier. The iCloud journey began back in 2011 when Steve Jobs approached Drew Houston, the Dropbox CEO, to acquire his company.
Houston didn’t want this deal to take place, but Jobs had a clear bent of mind of coming up with a similar kind of product. Apple came up with iCloud Drive in Mac OS X Yosemite and iOS 8. The design is kept in a manner to make the storage location apt.
The approach is to make the working as convenient as it is on Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox. This web hosting file service enables you to share, sync on Windows, iPad, iOS, and macOS. But, there aren’t any cookies available for Android. The iCloud Drive has enough space for storing any files you wish to.
Apple users get the privilege of having around 5 GB of storage for free. However, the storage limit is extendable through a plan subscription. As a matter of fact, Apple has been working continuously on developing iCloud Drive.
So, if a question like how to sort my iCloud photos is triggering your mind, then the newer version lets you do that. The previous version, however, could only allow the syncing of data and documents on your Apple device. All you’ve to do is sync your liked files and then browse through the files you’ve saved.
Enabling iCloud Drive
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Whenever you embark upon the journey of setting up iOS 8 on your iPad or iPhone, the system asks your choice of migrating to iCloud Drive. Upgrading to your old Data & Documents is a one-way step.
Converting your iCloud Drive storage account, then some other OS X systems won’t be capable of accessing the new-fangled storage files. You can always enable the iCloud Drive later if that wasn’t possible during the installation process.
All you’ve to do is open the Settings application on an iOS device, select iCloud from the list, and iCloud Drive turns that on. Enable the Photos option right here if you wish to enable access to the iCloud Photos Library.
Enable the iCloud Preferences Window on the Mac after opening it. Now that you’re wondering how iCloud too has been similarly fulfilling your needs, why switch to iCloud Drive. Hence, the tech experts suggest knowing what makes the two different!
What makes iCloud different from iCloud Drive?
An Apple user gets a backup solution from iCloud. All the vital files and information gets backed up. Photos in the Photos app, all the emails, iMessages, contacts, Game Center Information, reminders, Safari browser history, and bookmarks get backed up.
It also works tremendously well in backing up the biometric IDs, Apple Mail Accounts, Apple Pay Details, and the iCloud Drive files, not to mention! This process enables you to exercise control over the services and apps you’re looking out to backup. You can access Settings> Apple ID> iCloud.
The backups you see also seem to include the applications from third- parties, which you can always install from the App Store. Restoring all the information to a new-fangled Apple device is a click away.
Backups also seem to have control over other things like the device settings, App Store apps, Apple Music purchase history. The best thing that I find about Apple Backups is that Apple maintains a record of user actions.
A user can restore these anytime by downloading the music or app. Also, you would not have to indulge in buying or subscribing to those apps again. It is all thumbs up when you have limited storage left in the iCloud, as this is an easy and less tiring process.
You’ll be amazed to see that the files find their storing on the servers of Apple and synchronize via your shiny devices. They tie up to the Apple ID, offering a whopping storage space of 5 GB for free.
Accessing the iCloud storage files
You can access your iCloud Drive files using a web browser by making use of iOS devices, Windows PC, Mac, or any other device. Here are some ways that you can use:
● iOS 8+:
No single app exposes a file system on an iCloud Drive device, like Dropbox or similar apps do. All you’ve to do is make use of an application that works well with iCloud Drive.
Click open the file chooser, and then work on accessing the file system in a document browser for browsing the files stored aptly in iCloud Drive. The storage provider extension works directly with iCloud Drive.
● Windows
Windows computers require the installation of new software or iCloud for Windows 4.0. Installing the software, you’ll see the appearance of iCloud Drive as browser options for Windows or as File Explorer. Access these files by clicking these under the Favorites section.
● Web browser
You can access your iCloud files directly from the iCloud website from your web browser. All you’ve to do is sign in your Apple ID and click open the iCloud Drive Page.
● Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite+
The Finder’s sidebar aptly displays the iCloud Drive icon. By clicking on the icon, you’ll see the organization of documents into folders by their app. Just dump the file into a folder that finds its location. You’ll then see them syncing via iCloud.
The latest version of Apple’s operating system makes it a compulsion to enable iCloud Drive. You may find the iCloud storage space a little expensive because all you get is 5 GB of storage space.
Also, one important thing to note is that this 5 GB is all-inclusive of your backups. Nevertheless, this depends on a lot of factors. One such maxim is the knowledge scale of Apple products and the ecosystem.
But, if you’re already making use of an Apple device, then you are employing iCloud in some way or the other. And, this indeed is a good thing, isn’t it, folks!
