Stop Using ICloud
Apple’s iCloud has a long and troubled past , but the company continues to promote it to iPhone and Mac users with every new operating system update. Don’t be fooled. Service is an inconsistent mess and more hassle than it’s worth.
iCloud is the backbone of a number of Apple services, some of which are more problematic than others. On a superficial level, iCloud just handles all your iPhone backups and syncs files between apps. My main issues came from three different parts of the iCloud service: iCloud Photo Libraries , iCloud Drive, and iCloud Backups. Let’s start with the problems with the iCloud Photo Library, which is arguably one of the worst photo backup services on the Internet today.
ICloud Photo Library is inconsistent and confusing
ICloud Photo Library should automatically sync every photo you take on your phone to your Mac and iPad. In reverse, it also syncs every photo you download to your Mac with the Photos app on your phone. This way, you can access all your photos from anywhere as long as it means an Apple product. Your iCloud Photo Library will always include full-resolution versions of your photos, but your device may store low-resolution versions if there is little space on it. This all sounds great! It is a pity that it cannot work.
Due to the nature of iCloud Photo Library, everything happens under the hood and everything good about it is limited to Apple products ( iCloud has a web app, and there is a Windows workaround for using iCloud Photo Library with your iPhone, but none of them work like this good as they should). That alone should be enough to trigger warning signals for potential users, especially considering how often Apple likes to change filesystems and apps, but let’s talk a little about how bad the iCloud Photo Library actually works.
If you’re syncing data between iPhone and Mac, iCloud Photo Library works best with the Photos app on both ends. Most photo organizing apps store your photos in an easily accessible set of folders, but the Photos app, like iPhoto before it, stores all of your photos in a container that can’t be immediately accessed from the Finder in macOS. It also uses a cryptic naming scheme that is impossible to understand, so even if you bother getting to the actual folders filled with images, they are completely disorganized. Because of this, if you want to get an image from photos, you must use the Photos application itself to export it. This locks you into the Apple ecosystem and makes it very difficult for you to leave or even try other photo editing and management apps. You can use the iCloud web app to export photos, but this is a cumbersome process.
It’s even problematic for Apple products. Apple killed iPhoto and replaced it with Photos, but didn’t launch Photos with as many features. This means that a lot of users have lost data, especially those who have carefully browsed and created albums, added tags, or used face recognition . It all had to be imported, but like everything with iCloud it didn’t always seem to work as it should .
Take a look at this question posted on Macworld which asks a simple question: “If I turn off the iCloud Photo Library on my Mac, will these files still be stored locally on my hard drive?” It turns out they should , but first make sure you’re not using the storage optimization option . It is difficult for the average user to understand how the service works and this is a problem. People just want their photos to be uploaded.
Plus, if you’re just using iCloud just to store photos, the price will be overpriced when you consider that Amazon , Google, and Flickr offer unlimited or nearly unlimited photo storage for free. Dropbox is still arguably the best organizational tool for anyone looking to take complete control of their photos. All of these options are cross-platform, accessible from anywhere, and use standard file naming schemes, which means you can easily migrate your data to another service when you decide to leave.
ICloud Drive “features” make it difficult to use and understand
iCloud Drive, which is supposedly Apple’s more traditional approach to file storage for syncing, is a little less perplexing than iCloud Photo Library. However, this is still far from being used. iCloud Drive uses a traditional folder structure, which means you can access the files you store in your backup service from the Finder or an iOS app. However, it has a set of rules that seems unpredictable, and Apple’s attempts to make it “hidden” and “just work” complicate it.
On your Mac, iCloud Drive automatically saves the files you create in apps like Preview, TextEdit, Pages, and just about any other Apple app. These files are automatically synced between Macs by default, without your knowledge, and saved in app-specific folders on iCloud Drive. You can always turn this off, but it’s not clear to the average user how to do this.
Sierra also has the ability to sync desktop and document folders between Mac computers. This makes it a little easier to exchange documents between computers. If you’re like me and temporarily storing files on your desktop while you work, that takes up space in iCloud very quickly. Unless you’re paying for an iCloud storage plan, enabling Desktop & Documents will likely fill up your storage quickly, which in turn gives Apple the ability to pester you about how iCloud storage space is running out, and you should buy more.
Also, like iCloud Photo Library, Apple doesn’t make it clear what happens when you turn off desktop and document sync. This is probably because what is happening is rather annoying: when you turn off syncing between documents and desktop, it deletes all local files in those folders. You have to go and manually move them from iCloud back to their original folders (via the web app or via the Finder) if you want them back in place. This, for example, makes absolutely no sense.
Then there’s the new Optimized Storage option in Sierra . This pulls files off your Mac and only saves them to iCloud Drive when you’re running low on storage space on your Mac. In theory, this is useful if you’re running low on free space on your Mac, but as this support note points out , even Apple doesn’t recommend enabling it if you’re using their Pro apps like Logic Pro or Final Cut Pro. because the unpredictable nature of Optimized Storage means you may be left without key files. If you always have an Internet connection, it doesn’t really matter, because these files will still live in iCloud, but if not, it will disconnect you. We do not recommend anyone use Optimized Storage unless absolutely necessary.
Even iCloud backups have quirks
At its best, iCloud is good for backing up devices. Without doing anything, you can easily switch between iPhone and iPad, or replace your old iPhone with a new one. ICloud backups store your contacts, a list of installed apps and their settings, as well as general iOS settings. It’s a solid device backup service, but like everything else in iCloud, it does strange things for no apparent reason.
Personally, I keep having problems with backing up my own iPhone. For no reason whatsoever, the size of the backup seems to hover around 3-4 GB, while the next backup is always around 1 GB. I have been trying for many years to understand what is happening here, but I did not understand. I have disabled backups for certain apps, I am not using iCloud Photo Library, and there is nothing to increase the size of my backups to 4GB. Regardless, I get a warning to buy additional iCloud storage about once a week. When I do that, I will need to go in and delete my iCloud backup and then create a smaller backup again. This is frustrating. Again, since Apple is hiding so much from the user, it is difficult to troubleshoot because from my point of view everything should work as I expected with my backup around 1GB.
You cannot get rid of iCloud completely if you are an iPhone or Mac user. A number of apps sync data using iCloud, including all of Apple’s own features such as notes and reminders. This is mostly okay, the only real issue is slow syncing or random shutdowns. Even if everything works as intended, there is no denying that taking your data with you will be difficult if you ever leave the Apple ecosystem.