Hello, and welcome to another episode of my
Working With Apple series. My name is Carl Pullein and this week I'm going to introduce you to iCloud
and more specifically how iCloud works for you in the background. iCloud is a little bit different
from Google Drive or Microsoft Onedrive in that it basically is the whole Apple ecosystem and in this
video, which I have stolen from my Create Your Own Apple Productivity course which I updated a couple
of weeks ago, I want to explain to you exactly how iCloud works and why you should be using it
if you're in the Apple ecosystem. Now, before we go any further, I would just like to say if you
do get any value from this this video then please help me by clicking on that like button below.
And if you haven't subscribed to my channel yet and you want to get all the latest tips, tricks
and news on using Apple's productivity tools then please subscribe to my channel. And one
more thing for all you guys out there who love to abuse people who talk about iCloud because you
know better than everyone else. That's great! You know a lot but please be constructive with your
comments. I know last time I did an iCloud video there was so much abuse in the comments. I
don't care. I love doing these videos and I know a lot of people do get value from them. If
you're just going to be abusive, just back off. If you want to give me some constructive
criticism, I'm more than happy to listen. Okay, let me take you into my iCloud drive now and
I will show you why and how iCloud Drive works. Okay, let's delve into the world of iCloud. Now
iCloud does not work like a typical cloud storage system. So if you're used to Dropbox or Google
Drive, then you're probably going to find iCloud a little confusing to start with. So I think the
best place to start is right in the icloud.com home screen. So what you'll see here is I've got
my Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Photos, iCloud Drive, Notes, Reminders, Pages, Numbers, Keynote,
Find My iPhone, News Publisher, is simply there because I actually run my blog also on Apple
News now. If you're not using that then you won't have News Publisher. So don't panic,
that's just an additional item that I have simply because my blog is also available on Apple
News. So what do we have? So your icloud is the kind of like the system behind the system. This
is where all your Apple stuff is automatically stored. So, for example, you have your photos.
Now if you're just using the free, 5 gigabytes that Apple gives you and you take a lot of photos,
you're probably going to find that you're getting constant reminders to upgrade to a higher level.
And you can upgrade, I believe it's to like 2, I think it's 3 gigabytes, 5 gigabytes and up to
a terabyte. And if you're into the Apple One, it will now give you 2 terabytes of space in your
iCloud and it's not too expensive. I believe it's the most expensive one which I'm using which is
I think it's 1 terabyte, is actually just $9.99 a month, and I use family sharing, so my wife and
I share the same amount of space in one and it's more than enough space. I believe actually it's
2 terabytes that I actually have. So essentially what you have is everything is stored that you
want to store in iCloud. Now, you can change your preferences by simply going into preferences
and I'll just do that for you. So we're going to preferences and we're going to my iCloud. So
let's go to my iCloud. So I think it's here. So essentially I have my family sharing and all
this stuff is which I'm sharing with my family that's not where I wanted to go. What
I want to do is to go to my Apple ID, and if we go to my iCloud Drive, you can now so
here is my options. So all of this is turned on. So you can turn these on and off. If you don't
want your photos stored in iCloud you can turn it off but remember you have no backups. If
you're using it. So yeah. I do have 2 terabytes of space. My mail is also there. My contents,
my contacts, my calendar, Reminders, Notes, Keychain. All these things are here on my app
iCloud. All stored in iCloud and with my iCloud options, if I click on this and just click on this
what that will do is I can now decide which of the applications that I use actually are going to
store stuff in iCloud. Now, I've got pretty much most stuff turned on so that it's shared across
all my devices and that's essentially why you turn this on. You turn this on so it will show,
share, across all your devices. Now, one folder, if you're going to do this, if you're going to
use iCloud Drive as your main cloud storage I would strongly recommend that you turn
desktop and documents on. Now what that means that any document that's actually in your
computer, stored in your documents folder, or on your desktop is also going to be available on your
iPad and your iPhone, and I strongly recommend you would turn that on simply because then I know that
there are days when I've been working on a file, I suddenly have to rush and I've been saving my
work to my desktop, I get to the coffee shop and the person I'm meeting is going to be late,
and I think 'oh I can work on this file. Oh, it's on my desktop'. Well, no worries, because I
can go into the Files app which we'll come to in a moment. I'll go into my Files app in my iPad
and I can get that document so that's one of the best reasons why you want to turn that on. So
understanding that these are the apps that you've given permission to store their stuff in there
in your iCloud. So that's done. That's the thing that you really want to understand. That's the
background behind iCloud. Now, all this stuff is here. Now, one of the things that Apple has done
is they're trying to change the way that we think of storing files. In the past, we just used to
dump all our files into a folder on our computer and then we would have a nightmare trying to find
it. Instead, what Apple has done is if I click on my iCloud Drive here, and you will see that I've
got work that I've done in Byword, which is a text editor, and I used to use this a long time ago.
That is now stored in that folder. All my Drafts scripts and everything to do with Drafts, which is
my quick note-taking app, is stored in my Drafts. Garageband again here is a file dedicated to all
my Garageband files and if I click, double click, on that that will show you all my podcasts which
I've stored in iCloud. There's a lot there which is probably why it's taking a while to open. But
all these files are my Garageband these are all the podcasts that I have recorded in my podcast.
So you can see that I now, whatever device I'm working on, if I'm working on a strange computer,
for example, if I'm working on my wife's computer, I can log into my iCloud account, double click
on this and it will open up Garageband and I can work on it. As normal Garageband is also available
on my iPad, so again I could open this file up on my iPad. I don't have to worry about where I'm
saving anything. I just save it to Garageband in the iCloud. I don't use iMovie, but there may
be some there. This is another one that I use. My presentation software of choice is Keynote, so
generally speaking, I will save all my Keynote files that I'm working on in here. And they're
all in here only Keynote files are in here and this is the idea that Apple came up with
which is allowing you not to have to think about the files that you're saving because they
will automatically save in Keynote in iCloud. Now it doesn't have to be that way. If you prefer
the traditional way you can choose where you save the file. I've just now got into the habit of
saving pretty much everything related to Numbers, Keynote and Pages, for example, in iCloud under
their app because I open up the apps and it's just easy to find the stuff. I also have my
regular files, so I've got online course file documents are all in kept in here. Online courses
that iIam taking as a student, all the details I've got are in there. I've got my downloads
folder, which is actually from my computer, my documents, and my desktop. I've got my coaching
files, my business files here. Books that I've actually created, books that I've written. I've
shared this file here, so any document that file folder that you shared will actually have
this people icon in the folder. So I shared by me I've shared it and so it tells me everything
that I need. So iCloud Drive doesn't operate in the same way that your traditional cloud storage
service would use. I would get into the habit of trusting that iCloud is smart enough to know that
you're working on a Keynote file, for example, and when you click save, it's going to save that
file right in there. That makes it so much easier for when you're using Files, not iCloud Drive but
Files on your iOS device and it's just a really, I've got used to it now and it's a really really
good way of doing it. So, for example, if we go back into my Garageband, I can click on that and
now I have a number of options I can download the file. I can actually upload a file, I can create
a folder. I can delete the file here, from iCloud Drive.com. I can mail it, I can mail the link to
somebody and I can share that file with somebody just like you can do on your desktop computer. So
iCloud Drive doesn't work in the same way that you would expect from a traditional cloud service.
iCloud Drive is essentially everything you need for your for managing your productivity apps,
if you like, within icloud.com and I've, over about two or three years ago, I actually
shifted to using iCloud Drive as my main drive service and I found it seamless. It
just intuitively works. It's always there when I need it. Files that I'm currently working
on are always downloaded to my computer. Now, another thing that you should understand is if
you've got a file that you created six months ago, let's go back into my, let's say, I go into my
Keynote files here. Let's say I was working on this something down here which I was working on
the 30th October, sorry, 30th September 2017, let's see I can zoom in on that, so my Time And
Life Mastery course, the design documents that I worked on in 2017, it's there but it will not
be on my computer. I will have to download that first. That's something you need to because
iCloud Drive is smart enough to know that you're not working on a file so why have it taking
up space on your computer? So it will put it up into the cloud. If you need it, all you need to
do is double click on it. So that's essentially how iCloud drive works and the best place to show
you how it works is actually through the safari interface because you can see everything together.
All this is available to me if i'm working on a Mac I can be working on my wife's computer, which
is not logged into my iCloud account, but I can just go to icloud.com. I can retrieve the file and
I can get hold of it. So the idea behind iCloud Drive is like a one-stop service. Everything
you need is going to be saved there if you turn everything on. So hopefully that's given you a
good overview of how iCloud Drive works. It's basically going to hold everything that you need
for your services that you want to require and they're all up here if you just click on iCloud
Drive. you can get to your mail your contacts your calendar it's all there. You can even change
your settings for your iCloud service by directly from this place. So that's just your overview.
What I'm going to do in the next lesson is I'm going to show you how this then transfers to Files
on your iPad and indeed your iPhone as well. Okay, let's move on to that lesson. Well thank you very
much for watching this video. Now, if you want to take your apple productivity systems to the next
level and you want to bring in your Calendar, your Reminders, your iCloud and your Apple Notes all
together into one beautiful productivity system, then please take a look at my Create Your
Own Apple Productivity System course. It's completely updated for macOS Big Sur and iOS 14,
and it's readily available now. All you need to do is pop over to my learning centre, get yourself
enrolled and within about 90 minutes to two hours you're going to have yourself the know-how to
build your very own Apple productivity system. I hope you join me in this course. This course
now includes how to set up the Apple system using the Time Sector System so you get a modern-day
time management system fit for the world that we live in today and the world that we're probably
about to move into next year in 2021, 2022. Okay thanks very much for watching this video and
I really do hope you join me in this course.
