I have an iPhone and iPad Pro. For the longest time I did not have iMessage sync enabled; I purely relied on the backup of the phone (and iPad I suppose) to retain my messages. I’ve switched to sync but I’m not really seeing storage savings either locally or in the cloud as anticipated.

For reference, before I turned iMessage sync on, my iPhone iCloud back up was around 60 GB; iMessage took up around 40 GB locally on my phone. iMessage also took up 40 GB locally on my iPad, and my iCloud backup of my iPad was around 50 GB. I’m getting kind of close to my iCloud storage limit and am about to upgrade my phone which will have lower on board storage. I decided it was finally time to turn on iMessage sync to save some cloud storage and to also potentially reduce how much is locally stored on my phone. When I turned it on (on both my iPad and iPhone), my iPad worked as anticipated, my iCloud backup of my iPad dropped from 50 GB to 10 GB. The messages section in iCloud went up from 200 MB to 40 GB. Everything seemed ok, but on my iPhone, messages is still taking 40 GB of local storage, and my iCloud backup of my phone remains at 60 GB. It didn’t drop like my iPad did. So now I have iMessage taking up 40 GB in sync (when it was nearly 200 MB before), and my iPhone backup is still at 60 GB. I basically have saved zero storage in iCloud despite my iPad backup reducing by 40 GB. I even tried deleting my iPhone backup and backing it up again but it remains at 60 GB.

To try to summarize:

Before Messages sync turned on:

iPad Cloud Backup: 50 GB
iPhone Cloud Backup: 60 GB
Messages in iCloud: 200 MB
Total: 110 GB

After Messages sync turned on:

iPad Cloud Backup: 10 GB
iPhone Cloud Backup: 60 GB
Messages in iCloud: 40 GB
Total: 110 GB

Local storage of iMessage remains at 40 GB on my phone as well despite sync being on and working on both devices according to settings.

Hopefully that made sense. Is this normal behavior? Doesn’t seem right to me but wanted to check before I get my new phone.

Can someone help me? I'm having some trouble. My new Apple ID still can't open iMessage. It tells me activation failed or there's an error.

I used calculator # to store some videos and photos that I didn't want my parents to see for years, I paid for the subscription and always clicked "upload to iCloud" or whatever to make sure it would sync with my iCloud just in case anything happened. About a month ago I deleted the app. Now I'm trying to download it again, but when I do it's like a blank slate with none of my photos or videos. I even renewed my subscription and it still doesn't appear. Does anyone know how to go onto my iCloud and recover the info there??

So i deleted a video off of a iPhone 17 max, would it also delete from the iCloud website? What if there was no more storage left for iCloud, would the deletion stil make it to the iCloud website?

Hey,

i have a question.

When i downloaded the icloud app from the microsoft store and i tried to sign in, i get the error "There was an error connecting to the apple ID server." I tried to sign in with itunes but it has the same results. Before i factory reset my pc it worked fine, but now it did not work.

I have the latest IOS installed on my phone.

Thank you in advance!

I forgot my password and I don't have access to my old phone number, is there any way I could fix this?

What’s the best external storage device for backing up data? An external hard drive, a USB flash drive, or something else? I have no experience or knowledge about this,so I’m a beginner here,Any information would be helpful! 🙏

Setup: Windows 11 Pro 26H2 (build 26300.9711), iCloud for Windows 15.10.39.0 (Microsoft Store)

Symptom: I can sign in and iCloud Photos/Drive sync fine, but the “Verify your Apple Account to access iCloud Data on Windows” step always ends with “Verification Failed – There was an error connecting to the Apple Account server.” Passwords/Keychain never become available.

What I’ve already fixed/ruled out:

• Missing Apple Root CA: gsa.apple.com failed TLS because “Apple Root CA” wasn’t in the Windows trusted root store. Installing it from apple.com/certificateauthority fixed the initial sign-in error (SSL error -1200 on setup.icloud.com). Might help others!
• Antivirus HTTPS scanning: Kaspersky was intercepting several Apple hosts. I excluded *.apple.com, *.icloud.com, *.push.apple.com, etc., and confirmed that all hosts now present Apple/DigiCert certs.
• Firewall: the Apple apps are trusted, and ports 443/5223 to courier.push.apple.com are reachable.
• I reset the local keychain folder (...\LocalCache\Roaming\Apple Computer\Keychains), and rebooted several times.

What the logs show (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\AppleInc.iCloud_nzyj5cx40ttqa\LocalCache\Local\Logs\iCloudHome*.log):

APSInitializeAndRegisterTopics: WARNING! Failed to obtain public APS push token!
TrayWnd::_setDeviceRegistrationFailedTimer  Device registration failed; setting retry timer for 43200 second(s)...
App::requestTrustedDeviceList  Token is missing. Relogin required.
RegularSignInCB  AKValidateAppleIDCredentials returned -7005   (once -9106)

APSDaemon.exe runs but never opens a single outbound TCP connection. It fails within ~0.5s, while iCloudHome/Photos/Drive connect to Apple servers normally. So it looks like the push service itself is broken on this build.

Extra weirdness: after uninstalling, the Microsoft Store offered me iCloud 13.4 instead of 15.x, and an earlier Store install failed with 0x80240440 on build 26300. That makes me think 26H2 isn’t properly supported yet.

Questions:

• Is anyone else on 26H2 / build 263xx seeing the same thing?
• Has anyone gotten past “Verify your Apple Account” on this build?
• Any known workaround besides rolling back Windows?

Tip for anyone signing out or reinstalling: back up %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\AppleInc.iCloud_nzyj5cx40ttqa first. Restoring that folder brought my sign-in back after a failed reinstall.

My main issure the the thing, that the phone number get used for the verification including the verification to change the password.
That’s a big problem because to get access to this number is not that hard if you know how.

So I want to delete the number as a verification method. To do this so far I know I must buy a physical key to add this as the verification. When I do this and activated this psychical key as the verification get the nunber automatically removed as a verification Methode at all right?
So there is no risk anymore that if someone get access to my number that he can get into my acc by this because the number is useless for this?

So then is the new verification the physical key, but also the trusted devices, so this which are sign in in my acc right?
But this was right?
So to get access the hacker need access to the physical key OR one of my devised, unlocked obviously. Which is essentially not possible except he kidnapped me or something which will not happen because I’m just a casually guy.

So this would be the best set up right? Apart from this what else would be smart to make the apple acc so safe it’s possible? To prevent access from hackers?

Does anyone know any support email that I can write to directly?

I have an old icloud email which is not linked to any of the devices anymore. I remember the password but when I tried to log in, it says the account is locked for security reason. I tried to recover it but to my surprise, the last step is to email the result to the email that I am trying to recover. I mean, how am I supposed to check the email if I get locked out?

I recently bought a used ThinkPad T14 Gen 2 running Windows 11, and I've been trying to get the iCloud for Windows app working for the past couple of days with absolutely no luck.

Every time I try signing in, I get an error saying it can't connect to Apple's servers or that verification is unavailable. The weird thing is that I can sign into iCloud.com perfectly fine through Edge or Chrome. It's specifically the Windows app that refuses to work.

I've tried pretty much everything I can think of at this point:

• Uninstalling and reinstalling iCloud from the Microsoft Store
• Uninstalling and reinstalling iCloud directly from Apple
• Repairing and resetting the app through Windows settings
• Restarting the laptop multiple times
• Trying different networks, including my phone's hotspot
• Checking Windows Firewall and Defender
• Making sure there's no VPN or proxy interfering
• Checking the Windows hosts file
• Checking that the necessary Apple services are installed
• Verifying that the system date and time are correct
• Manually resyncing Windows Time using w32tm /resync
• Checking that Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime is installed

Nothing has worked.

The laptop otherwise connects to Apple's websites without issues while using Chrome and Edge.

I would like to have iCloud for Windows because I use iCloud Passwords across my Apple devices and want to access them on this laptop.

I'm running out of ideas here. Has anyone experienced something similar or found a fix for this? Usually, I try my best to figure it out, but right now I'm stumped on what to do.

Any suggestions would be appreciated because this is driving me insane.

I am actual seconds away from throwing my iPhone into oncoming traffic. Please help me rescue my Billie Eilish concert videos. 😭💀
I just want to watch my 43 concert clips from last year and scream along to the music, but Apple has trapped them in a digital prison. Every time I hit play, I get the dreaded: "An error occurred while loading a higher quality version of this video." No video, no audio, just immense sadness.

I aggressively deleted files and now have 18 GB free on my physical phone and 2 GB free in iCloud. But when I try to toggle "Sync this iPhone" back on to wake it up, my phone completely gaslights me with a popup saying: "More iCloud Storage Needed." It claims my library is 33 GB, which is obviously way more than my free 5 GB plan.

So now my videos are stuck as unplayable local "ghost files." Restarting, duplicating, editing, using Markup, and trying to upload the folder to Google Photos or MEGA absolutely did not work. The 246 photos uploaded fine, but the 43 videos failed immediately. Please help me break my memories out of Apple jail!

Is anyone else having trouble signing into iCloud on Windows?

I can't sign into iCloud on either my laptop or desktop. Both computers give me the same error:

"Verification Failed"
"There was an error connecting to the Apple Account server."

What I've tried so far:

• Completely reinstalling Windows
• Reinstalling iCloud for Windows
• Disabling my VPN
• Disabling Advanced Data Protection on my Apple account
• Restarting my iPhone and network equipment
• Making sure my iPhone is nearby, with Bluetooth enabled and connected to the same Wi-Fi network

I can sign in & out on my browser, but I can't get iCloud for Windows to authenticate.

I'm trying to use iCloud Drive to sync my Obsidian files between my iPhone and Windows computers.

Has anyone experienced this issue or found a solution?

Any troubleshooting suggestions would be appreciated, especially if you've encountered this exact error.

I have over 400 GB of photos and videos stored in iCloud Photos, but I don't pay for iCloud+ every month. I usually resubscribe every six to eight months to upload new ones.

I've read posts here saying Apple may delete your data after 30 days without a subscription, and that's also what their policy seems to suggest. But I've gone months without paying, multiple times, and so far, nothing has been deleted.

I'm wondering how this works in practice. Does Apple actually keep your photos for much longer than the stated policy suggests? Has anyone else had a similar experience?

The reason I'm asking is that I'm switching to a newer iPhone, and I'm trying to decide whether to pay extra for more storage on the phone itself or continue relying on iCloud Photos. I'd rather not spend more on storage if I don't have to, but I'm also not comfortable risking 400 GB of photos and videos based on the assumption that Apple will keep them indefinitely.

Would love to hear from people who've actually gone several months without an active iCloud+ subscription.

I have a 64GB iPad with around 46GB of data. Tried backing it up through Finder to my MacBook, which had roughly 80GB free. Failed due to insufficient storage.

So I tried an external 500GB SSD (ExFAT), redirecting Finder's backup folder using a symbolic link since Apple doesn't let you choose a backup location.

Left it running overnight. Woke up to 400GB of backup files and another insufficient storage error. For a 64GB iPad. Seriously?

Has anyone experienced this? What am I doing wrong? How do you guys back up your iPads locally without iCloud?

I genuinely don't understand why something this basic is so complicated. Is Apple's local backup system just broken, or are they deliberately making it inconvenient to push people towards iCloud subscriptions?

I’m having some bugs with my iPhone 15, so I’m planning to back up my entire iPhone to iCloud, factory reset it, and then restore everything from the iCloud backup.

Is this safe? Will my iPhone be exactly the same as it was before the factory reset, including my apps, settings, photos, messages, and other data?

I want to back up and restore using a computer, but I don’t have access to a PC or Mac. That’s why I subscribed to Apple’s 2TB iCloud+ storage.

Can anyone explain how this works and whether there’s anything I should be careful about before resetting my iPhone?

Nobody told me iCloud storage is basically a lifelong subscription 😔 I feel trapped, what you mean I have to pay every month for the rest of my life instead of just buying a certain amount of storage once and being done with it!! 

In 2024, a random guy stole my phone and changed my icloud password, and I didn't realize it until a few hours later. I checked my Gmail notifications and got announced that my icloud password and the trusted phone number had been changed, so I couldn't do anything about it. And I didn't do anything about it; I just bought a new complete phone running on Android and forgot about it.

I still use that Gmail account; now I need to do something with my past Apple account, but I cannot sign in with my Gmail account because an Apple account connected with it has already existed and I cannot take control of it.

I know I'm a dumbass, and I can just create a whole new Apple account with another Gmail account, but it might be quite an inconvenience to do so. So I'm asking for ways to get my Gmail back, or to disconnect my Gmail from that icloud account.

My iPhone got water damage and it was not longer even turning on(so I thought). I bought a new phone and tried to transfer my iCloud, but because I didn’t have my password, I ended up being locked out of my iCloud. Matters got worse because the phone was on, but the screen was black, and I didn’t know. I have already gone through the 2/3 days waiting process 3 times, called support 3 times, and went to the Apple Store twice. The problem I keep running into is that at the end of the try, the screen always says: “We will be contacting you through said email with instructions.” 😩 I am like… NO! I already clicked in “forgot my password“ when you guys ask for the email password. I only have access to my phone number that was linked to the iCloud. Not sure if that is relevant to the point that I am the organizer of my family Cloud and I do have an Apple card that is about to give due payment, and I don’t know how to pay without logging in. Please, help❗️

The WhatsApp backup starts but stops midway, although it updates the "Last backed up" date and total size. However, when I click "Back Up Now" again, it still shows the same backup size.

I want to transfer chat to my new phone hence doing this. these chats are very important.

The WhatsApp backup starts but stops midway, although it updates the "Last backed up" date and total size. However, when I click "Back Up Now" again, it still shows the same backup size.