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Tamo'shanter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 4, 2015
7
1
Do I have to manually add accounts to get them to appear on iCloud?

Why aren't they 'just there'?
 
Last edited:

ApfelKuchen

macrumors 601
Aug 28, 2012
4,334
3,011
Between the coasts
An icloud.com/me.com/mac.com email address will appear in iCloud. Other email addresses will not appear in iCloud.

The vast majority of modern email accounts use a protocol called IMAP (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, icloud/me/mac... all IMAP). That means the mail is already "in the cloud." Whatever company provides the email provides the cloud server. It would be redundant (and difficult) to duplicate the contents of one IMAP server on another.

When you sign into Gmail on your iPhone's and MacBook's Mail app, you are connecting to the Gmail cloud server. There's no reason to duplicate that in iCloud.
 

Tamo'shanter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 4, 2015
7
1
Ah okay.

Wouldn't it be handy if iCloud replicated your iphone mail settings, though?
 

ApfelKuchen

macrumors 601
Aug 28, 2012
4,334
3,011
Between the coasts
iCloud Backup does backup your iPhone mail settings. By settings, I mean the login password, server path, and the like - the things you'll see at Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

This explains the contents of an iCloud backup. https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12519 Just to be clear, a "backup" does not include data that's stored in iCloud in other ways - iCloud Contacts, iCloud Photo Library, Documents in the Cloud/iCloud Drive... these aren't part of the backup, because they're already stored elsewhere in iCloud (same idea for Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. - that's already stored at Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.). Also, a lot of stuff falls into the category of "app data" - just because it's not explicitly mentioned in the article does not necessarily mean it's not being backed up.

If you're looking for iCloud Backup to store the entire contents of your iPhone... not going to happen. It's just plain inefficient to duplicate info that's already stored somewhere else in the cloud. iCloud Backup stores the info necessary to reconstruct the info on your iPhone.
 

Tamo'shanter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 4, 2015
7
1
No worries. Appreciate the reply! :)

I guess what I really want is to open up iCloud, click on 'mail' and see all the emails as if I was on my iphone. That doesn't seem possible without a bit of setup.

I've had the macbook/ipad/iphone for a while but I don't remember ever having to go through the process of adding accounts etc on each new device.

First world problems. :p
 

ApfelKuchen

macrumors 601
Aug 28, 2012
4,334
3,011
Between the coasts
As long as you're restoring from a backup as part of the setup of a new iOS device, or doing some form of data migration on Mac (Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant, by either a hardwired or wifi connection, or from a Time Machine backup), then the email account settings move across, too. If you didn't do that... the process of adding settings for major services like Gmail and Yahoo is little more than selecting the service and entering your email address and password - a pretty easy thing to forget you did, in the big scheme.

I can appreciate wanting to be able to have a one-stop shop for your email at iCloud.com, but likely way too much to hope for. Definitely a first world problem.
 

glenthompson

macrumors demi-god
Apr 27, 2011
2,983
842
Virginia
I have all my old e-mail addresses forwarded to my me.com address. That way all my mail shows up in iCloud and on all my devices. All e-mail is sent from my me.com address.
 
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