Use iCloud Drive on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC
Set up iCloud Drive to keep your files up to date across your devices.
On your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with iOS 11 and later, you can access your files from the Files app when you have iCloud Drive set up. The Files app makes it easy to share your documents, collaborate in real time on your Pages, Numbers, and Keynote projects, and manage everything that you store in iCloud Drive.
If you don't have the Files app on your device, update to iOS 11 or later. If you're using iOS 9 or iOS 10, you can use the iCloud Drive app.
Automatically save Pages, Numbers, and Keynote files to iCloud Drive
You can update the settings on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch so that your documents automatically save to iCloud Drive, On My [device], or a third-party cloud service.
- Go to Settings.
- Choose to update the settings for Pages, Numbers, or Keynote.
- Tap Document Storage.
- Choose where you want to automatically save your documents.
If you choose iCloud Drive, changes you make to Pages, Numbers and Keynote files on your Mac automatically save to iCloud Drive.
Add Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive
If you want to access files from your Mac on your other devices, you can add the Desktop and Documents folder to iCloud Drive.
Manage your iCloud Drive files while offline
If you're offline and want to access, edit, and save documents in iCloud Drive, follow these steps first.
How to access files while you're offline
To access your files offline, open the Files app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and follow these steps.
If you make changes to locally stored versions of your files while offline the changes won't appear in iCloud Drive. Upload the updated versions of your files to iCloud Drive when you're back online.
Upload files to iCloud Drive to save changes made offline
You can upload files to iCloud Drive from a Mac or PC by doing one of the following:
- Drag files from either your desktop or a folder window on your computer to the iCloud Drive window. You can also drag your files to a folder icon in the iCloud Drive window. If you drag to a folder icon, it's highlighted to confirm that the item you're dragging goes into the folder.
- Click the iCloud Drive upload button
in the iCloud Drive toolbar. Select the files you want to upload, then click Choose.
If you don't have enough space in iCloud for your upload, upgrade your iCloud storage or manage your iCloud storage to free up space.
When changes to your files upload to iCloud
The amount of time it takes for your changes to upload to iCloud depends on the app you're using. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote regularly upload files to iCloud so you don’t lose any changes. Other apps upload your files to iCloud only after you save them to the iCloud Drive folder. To see your saved files on a Mac, go to Finder > iCloud Drive. On your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, go to the Files app. On a PC with iCloud for Windows, go to File Explorer > iCloud Drive.
If you still don't see the latest changes or you see an "in-progress change" icon or the iCloud icon in the notification area (system tray), try to save a new document to the iCloud Drive folder. Then check the iCloud Drive folder to see if the changes appear.
Where to find missing files
When you turn on iCloud Drive, any documents that you already store in iCloud automatically move to iCloud Drive. You can see your files on iCloud.com, in the Files app on iOS 11 and later, in the Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps, or in the iCloud Drive app on iOS 10 and iOS 9.
If you don’t see your files in any of those locations, set up iCloud Drive on all of your devices.
If you need to access a file that you deleted within the last 30 days, you can get it back from the Recently Deleted folder in the Files app, or on iCloud.com.
If your files don't update to iCloud Drive
Check these things first:
- Make sure that you have enough iCloud storage. If you need more space in iCloud, you can buy more iCloud storage or free up space by deleting content.
- Sign in to iCloud on all of your devices and turn on iCloud Drive.
- Make sure that you have an active Internet connection on your Mac and on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
- Install the latest versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. See which versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote you can use with iCloud Drive.
- Create a new document and save it to see if it uploads to iCloud. If it does, see if your other documents start uploading.
If you tried these steps and your files still don’t upload to iCloud, stay signed in to iCloud and save your updated files to a different folder on your Mac or PC. Then contact Apple Support for more help.
How to address a Resolve Conflict message
If you get a Resolve Conflict message when you open a file, choose the version of the document that you want to save. Then choose Keep to update the file in iCloud. This message means the file was updated on another device or from iCloud.com since the last time you signed in to iCloud.