Mike MurphyAI Handyman
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Episode 132

The iCloud Show

March 16, 2018 ·

EP132: THE ICLOUD SHOW Today I am going to simplify the mysterious Apple iCloud for you and help you de-clutter, de-stress and take control over your photos and backup strategy on your Apple devices. Episode Summary: An overview of what Apple iCloud is What is backed up and where is it stored? How does iCloud Photos really work? What is iCloud Drive and how can it help you in your overall backup strategy?

Episode Summary: An iCloud 101 for Apple users — what actually gets backed up, how iCloud Photos syncing works, and how to use iCloud Drive as part of a real backup strategy.

What You’ll Learn

  • What iCloud actually is and how it powers the whole Apple device ecosystem
  • What gets backed up automatically, and how to check whether your backup is current
  • How iCloud Photos syncing actually works, including the delete-everywhere warning
  • What iCloud Drive is and how to use it as a real backup strategy

The most common question Mike gets asked: how do I free up space on my iPhone or iPad? A few questions worth sitting with: do you know what actually gets backed up to iCloud? If you delete a photo from your iPad, does it also disappear from your iPhone and Mac? Do you know when your device last backed up? Did you know you could back up 2TB of anything for under $10/month at the time? If any of this feels confusing, you’re not alone.

Hard drive storage vs. iCloud storage: these are unrelated. Buying more iCloud space does not free up room on a full iPhone — you have to remove or offload data from the device itself. The upsell popup offering more iCloud storage is genuinely a little misleading on this point.

What Is iCloud?

iCloud is Apple’s proprietary system for storage, backup, and syncing across devices and services, accessible from anywhere — Apple’s answer to Dropbox or Google Drive. Beyond backup and storage, it also powers Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Reminders, Notes, Photos, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iCloud Drive, and Find My iPhone — all synced under one Apple ID.

“The Cloud” simply means information stored on the internet, accessible from anywhere — unlike a USB-tethered external hard drive sitting at home, unreachable from a coffee shop. iCloud is also a big part of why the Apple ecosystem feels so seamless: Continuity and Handoff let you start something on one device (a Safari tab, a podcast, a video) and pick it up on another, and AirDrop moves files instantly between devices — all powered by the same underlying iCloud account.

What Gets Backed Up, and How to Manage It

App data, Apple Watch backups, call history, device settings, home screen layout, iMessages, photos and videos, purchase history, ringtones, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, mail, notes, health data, and iCloud Drive files — essentially everything needed to switch phones without losing anything, as long as iCloud Backup is turned on.

Setup and management: an Apple ID and password is all that’s needed; manage settings from each device or on a Mac. Check “Manage Storage” (iPhone General Settings, or Mac System Preferences) to see what’s taking up space and clear out old backups or unused apps. iCloud.com only works from a desktop browser (Chrome, Safari, or Windows) — not from Safari on iPhone or iPad — and it’s worth exploring directly to connect what’s on your devices with what’s stored in the cloud.

Homework: on iPhone/iPad, go to Settings → your name → check the device list at the bottom for anything outdated, confirm iCloud Backup is on for each, and check when the last backup happened (should be within 24 hours). Tap iCloud → Manage Storage to look for unusually large or duplicate backups. On Mac, everything lives in System Preferences under iCloud.

How iCloud Photos Actually Works

iPhone Photo settings live under Settings → Photos; Mac controls live in the Photos app and System Preferences. With iCloud Photo Library on and Optimize iPhone Storage enabled, photo quality stays solid while saving device storage, and every photo/video becomes accessible on all devices, backed up instantly.

Warning: deleting a photo from your iPhone to free up space also deletes it from iCloud and every other synced device.

Clean-up advice: delete accidental pocket photos and junk screenshots regularly, but for real preservation, get photos off devices entirely and into a master photo library on a computer or external drive — Image Capture on Mac makes this quick.

iCloud Drive and the Files App

Introduced with iOS 11 in 2017, the Files app (blue folder icon) surfaces everything in iCloud Drive, also viewable in the Mac Finder sidebar or at iCloud.com — and it can also surface other connected storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries in one place.

Storage pricing at the time: 5GB included, 50GB for $0.99/month, 2TB for $9.99/month. Files stored in iCloud Drive don’t count against on-device storage, so offloading photos and video there frees up phone space while keeping everything accessible. On Mac, Desktop & Documents backup can automatically sync anything placed in those folders to the cloud without using local space.

Summary Recap

Think of iCloud as one shared room in the cloud for every Apple product and service, accessible anywhere with an Apple ID — meaning fire, theft, or a failed hard drive doesn’t have to mean lost data, as long as backups are actually happening consistently. Delete photos carefully, since removing them from one device removes them everywhere. iCloud Drive functions like Apple’s version of Dropbox or Google Drive, letting you access and share files straight from an iPhone without being tethered to a stack of external drives.

Show Notes & Links