ICloud
iCloud is the personal cloud service of Apple. Launched on October 12, 2011, iCloud enables users to store and sync data across devices, including Apple Mail, Apple Calendar, Apple Photos, Apple Notes, contacts, settings, backups, and files, to collaborate with other users, and track assets through Find My. iCloud's client app is built into iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS, and visionOS, and is available for Microsoft Windows. iCloud may additionally be accessed through a limited web interface.
iCloud offers users 5 GB of free storage which may be upgraded through optional paid plans to up to 12 TB; all paid plans include iCloud+ providing additional features. Optional end-to-end encryption has been available since 2022 for all iCloud data, except Calendar, Contacts, and Mail, which rely on legacy sync technologies for compatibility with third-party apps., the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016.
History
iCloud was announced on May 31, 2011, in a press release. On June 6, 2011, during the WWDC 2011 keynote, Steve Jobs announced that iCloud would replace MobileMe, which had been widely seen as a "failure", a fact which Steve Jobs acknowledged during the announcement. iCloud was released on October 12, 2011, and MobileMe was discontinued on June 30, 2012. Previous MobileMe users could keep their @mac.com and @me.com email addresses as aliases to their new @icloud.com address. Earlier versions included Back to My Mac, which was previously part of MobileMe. This service allowed users to create point-to-point connections between computers. It was discontinued on July 1, 2019.iCloud had 20 million users within a week after launch. It received early criticism for bugs, especially with Core Data syncing. These issues were addressed in iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks.
At launch, iCloud was partly hosted on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. In 2016, Apple replaced Azure with Google Cloud Platform. In 2021, The Information reported that Apple was storing 8 million TB of data on Google's cloud, and was on track to spend $300 million that year. Apple also operates its own data centers, including one in Maiden, North Carolina.
In June 2019, iCloud was introduced to Windows 10 via the Microsoft Store.
In June 2021, Apple introduced iCloud+, which added Private Relay, Hide My Email and Custom Email Domain to paid users of the services, as well as an unlimited storage limit for video from cameras added through HomeKit Secure Video.
In March 2022, Apple settled a class-action lawsuit alleging that it had misled users by storing data on non-Apple servers.
In February 2025, iCloud+ introduced a new app called Apple Invites.
Features
iCloud is a free service, and comes with 5 GB of cloud storage. Users can subscribe to iCloud+ for additional storage up to 12 TB.Some of iCloud's features are accessible not only through apps built into iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS and macOS but also on iCloud.com. These include:
- iCloud Mail, a free email address which supports Push email, a webmail interface, and IMAP sync to third-party clients;
- Contacts and calendar syncing, and calendar sharing features, as well as support for CardDAV and CalDAV;
- iCloud Drive, a cloud storage and syncing feature;
- iCloud Photos, which stores and syncs pictures in full-resolution;
- Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, allowing real-time collaboration on both native apps and the web;
- Notes and Reminders sync, and the ability to edit and create notes and reminders on the web;
- iCloud Invites, allowing the creation and management of digital invitations;
- Find My, which lets users find their Apple devices or other Find My-enabled devices, and remotely erase lost Apple devices;
- Apple Books ;
- Apple Home ;
- Apple Music ;
- Apple Wallet ;
- Phone ;
- Safari ;
- Siri
Backup and restore
iCloud allows users to back up the settings and data on iOS devices running iOS 5 or later. Data backed up includes photos and videos in the Camera Roll, device settings, app data, messages, ringtones, and Visual Voicemails. Backups occur daily when the device is locked and connected to Wi-Fi and a power source. In case of a malfunction of any Apple device, during the restoration process, iCloud offers to restore all data along with App data only if the device was synced to iCloud and backed up.Find My
Prior to iOS and iPadOS 13, Find my iPhone and Find My Friends stored data in iCloud before merging into Find My.Find My enables users to track the location of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS devices, AirPods, AirTags and a number of supported third-party accessories through a connected iCloud account. A user can see the device's approximate location on a map, display a message and/or play a sound on the device, and remotely erase its contents. Users can also share their GPS locations to others with Apple devices and view the location of others who choose to share their location.
The Send Last Location feature, which utilizes iCloud, can be optionally enabled to automatically send the location of the device to Apple when the battery is low.
iCloud Keychain
iCloud Keychain is a password manager developed by Apple that syncs passwords across devices and suggests secure ones when creating new accounts. It is integrated into Safari, and is accessible from other applications on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. It was announced at WWDC 2013, and released in October 2013 alongside iOS 7.0.3.iCloud Keychain backups provide different security guarantees than traditional iCloud backups. This is because iCloud Keychain uses "end-to-end encryption", meaning that iCloud Keychain backups are designed so that the provider does not have access to unencrypted data. This is accomplished through the use of a novel "key vault" design based on a Hardware Security Module located in Apple's data centers.
In iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, iCloud Keychain was migrated from a page in the settings app to a standalone app, Passwords. The Passwords app continues to sync with iCloud Keychain and the Keychain application.
iTunes Match
debuted on November 14, 2011. It was initially available to US users only. For an annual fee, customers can scan and match tracks in their iTunes music library, including tracks copied from CDs or other sources, with tracks in the iTunes Store, so customers do not have to repurchase said tracks. Customers may download up to 100,000 tracks in 256 kbit/s DRM-free AAC file format that matches tracks in any supported audio file formats in customers' iTunes libraries, including ALAC and MP3. Customers also have the choice to keep their original copies stored on their computers or have them replaced by copies from the iTunes Store. Any music not available in the iTunes Store is uploaded for download onto customers' other supported devices and computers; doing this will not take storage from the customers' iCloud's storage allowance. Any such tracks stored in the higher quality lossless audio ALAC, or original uncompressed PCM formats, WAV and AIFF, are transcoded to 256 kbit/s DRM-free AAC format before uploading to the customers' iCloud storage account, leaving the original higher quality local files in their original format.If a user stops paying for the iTunes Match service, all copies of the DRM-free AAC iTunes Store versions of tracks that have already been downloaded onto any device can be kept, whether on iOS devices or computers.
From iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, the iTunes Radio function will be available across devices, including integration with the Music app, both on portable iOS devices and Apple TV, as well as inside the iTunes app on Macintosh and Windows computers. It will be included in an ad-free version for subscribers to the iTunes Match service and is currently available only in the US and Australia
The streaming Genius shuffle is not available in current versions of iOS but is available in iTunes on the Mac.
On January 28, 2016, ad-free iTunes Radio was discontinued and is therefore no longer part of iTunes Match.
, iTunes Match is available in 116 countries, while iTunes in the Cloud is available in 155 countries.
iWork for iCloud
During the 2013 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference keynote speech, iWork for iCloud was announced for release at the same time as the next version of the app versions of iWork later in the year. The three apps for both iOS and macOS that form Apple's iWork suite, will be made available on a web interface, and accessed via the iCloud website under each user's iCloud Apple ID login. They will also sync with the user's iOS and macOS versions of the app, should they have them, again via their iCloud Apple ID.This allows the user to edit and create documents on the web, using one of the supported browsers: Safari, Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. It also means that Microsoft Windows users now have access to these native –previously only Apple device– document editing tools, via the web interface.