Apple Defeats Lawsuit Related to iCloud's Measly 5GB of Free Storage

[turbineseaplane]

They also don't obligate to give iMovie/Garageband for free - it's a bout customer experience. If it was a free open market where you could easily pick your cloud provider, people would move to competitors.

This ^^

If I could have third party options that natively integrate as closely as iCloud does, I’d switch to any manner of other providers.

Honestly, all I’ve wanted is some option between 200 GB and 2 TB

They purposely made it so one has to go up to the 2 TB if you need anything in between which is a huge range

There is no rationale, besides financial benefit to apple, to not offer 500GB/1TB/2TB, etc

 

[icanhazmac]

It’s a pretty fair complaint that the included iCloud 5GB is wholly inadequate in 2025 and beyond and more should be included with your account

My god the entitlement in this thread! These arguments are painful and very similar to the 8gb drama filled threads before Apple increased to 16gb. Up till the AI debacle, 8gb in a base mini was plenty for people who check email and lightly surf and if you don't use the AI crap it still is.

5gb is a "base" offering for free and is probably adequate for "base" use cases. If you do more than "base" YMMV and you might need to pay for more.

Everyone feels entitled to "base" = "what I need" for free and that is not how the world works.

 

[winxmac]

When I was still using iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s both 32GB around 2016 to 2018, I used iCloud for a few photos and videos since my primary device for photo and video is a Nikon D5500 DSLR camera...

I only use iCloud now for Mail and Notes so 5GB is sufficient for my use case although I agree that free storage upgrade beyond 5GB is long overdue... Free storage should now be at least 50GB

 

[russell_314]

This ^^

If I could have third party options that natively integrate as closely as iCloud does, I’d switch to any manner of other providers.

I’m not against having better 3rd party options.

Honestly, all I’ve wanted is some option between 200 GB and 2 TB

I would also appreciate this option! Perhaps puts in a request to Apple. Even just a 1 TB option would be nice.

There is no rationale, besides financial benefit to apple, to not offer 500GB/1TB/2TB, etc

I’m not sure what the issue is here? Companies making decisions based solely on financial benefit? I would hope so. This should be the main consideration of every decision a corporation makes. They have a duty to the shareholders.

 

[TruthWatcher412]

It is a measly amount, but I'm sure tons of people use their iPhones without subscribing to storage. In fact, I would guess its the vast majority.

Stupid is not always criminal.

My mom doesn’t subscribe because my cheap father won’t pay it for their family account. So her phone never backs up but it’s mostly Facebook games anyways so no real loss ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[ignatius345]

5gb is a "base" offering for free and is probably adequate for "base" use cases. If you do more than "base" YMMV and you might need to pay for more.

Everyone feels entitled to "base" = "what I need" for free and that is not how the world works.

Right, but times change, and that 5 GB has been exactly the same even as the storage capacity, default photo file size (and prices) of iPhones have gone up and up and up -- and the retail price of cloud storage has plummeted.

Everyone with any skin in the game here has ponied up upwards of $1K for an iPhone on which some core functionality (backup, photo library syncing) is totally reliant on iCloud.

 

[one more]

Got 400Gb here. That is 200Gb on Apple Family then an additional 200Gb.

Yes, the Apple Family gets us 200GB as part of the plan and then we can buy more storage on top of it, at the same price as stand-alone iCloud storage. So 1$ will get you an extra 50GB, ets.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

I'm ok with paying for my 2TB plan, but I'd very much like to sync my Music folder without an Apple Music subscription.

iTunes Match is still alive and kicking and the cost is quite reasonable imo at $25 per year.

 

[Alameda]

How utterly ridiculous.
Even in these comments.

You don't *need* iCloud AT ALL to use the devices. The 5gb although seemingly 'tight' is no such thing - its more than enough for minimal usage and an iCloud backup of one device.

If you need more storage then buy the appropriate level of iPad / iPhone device in the first place. If you have thousands of photos then you have a choice - store them on the device and get one with enough memory... or pay for a cloud storage service such as iCloud.

Turn it all off - nobody's forcing you to use it.

Americans really will try their luck in the courts for literally anything - and there are lawyers willing to take their money for it.

When Gmail came out, it offered a whopping 3 GB of email storage.

TOO BAD that people “need” to store gigabytes of photos and videos for free. They can get somebody else to give it to them for free. Or they can pay somebody. It’s just baffling that people think they can sue a company to force them to give them something for free.

 

[Starfia]

This seems positively whiny. 5 gigabytes for free, for anyone in the world, even without purchasing anything else from Apple, should be illegal?

Microsoft gives customers 5 gigabytes for free. DropBox gives you 2 gigabytes for free. How is 5 gigabytes of free storage "low by today's standards"?

The best counterpoint here is from Lyrics23:

It’s not the amount of free storage that’s the problem, it’s how that free storage is often used unknowingly and then scary messages about your storage being full encourage people to subscribe to make the problem go away…

But I think even this doesn't hold up when iOS gives you, and directs you to, a dedicated Settings area for clearly illustrating and managing how storage is used.

 

[turbineseaplane]

But I think even this doesn't hold up when iOS gives you, and directs you to, a dedicated Settings area for clearly illustrating and managing how storage is used.

“Clearly” is doing a lot of work here…especially for general or basic users who are most likely the ones using the 5GB free tier

Showing you the problem is very different than understanding how and what to do about it while being, understandably, worried about what happens to your data

 

[icanhazmac]

Right, but times change, and that 5 GB has been exactly the same even as the storage capacity (and prices!) of iPhones have gone up and up and up.

So what? 5gb is still a functional amount for "base" use cases.

People who use their phone as a phone, quick email checks, maybe read the news while at the doctors office and loyalty card storage. Minimal pics/videos/apps.

VS

Teenage girls who take 7 pictures of EVERYTHING, make countless videos of every day acts and have 10 different picture filter apps.

VS

Tech savvy folks on MR that feel their use case should be considered "base" and always free whether it be storage, ram or cloud space, free, free, free!

These people have different storage requirements, simple as that. Base users are still ok with 5gb.

Ex: In this day and age it is criminal that all SUVs don't have 7 person seating!!! I have a large family and 5 seats isn't enough, I shouldn't have to pay for the extra 3rd row, it should come standard!

 

[jwsf28]

Conversely, the most valuable company in the world shouldn't be trying to nickel and dime folks out of an extra dollar per month -- most especially given the premium pricing of all their products to begin with.

It flies in the face of how they like to market their brand and be perceived by consumers

Apple should make 50GB iCloud the default and do something "pro consumer" for the first time in a LONG while

Conversely, don’t be cheap.

 

[Jay Tee]

I want Apple to claim for court costs.

 

[UltimateSyn]

The prices and tiering is so egregious. They should really *at least* have a tier for 1TB at $4.99

 

[Chungry]

In that case they should let me pick a 3rd party online back up service of my choice but they don't, since they love locking us in.

Samsung for example offers it's own backup solution, yet they also let you back up on OneDrive, Google or even a connected thumb drive.

This right here

 

[Chungry]

100% agree -- What I don't understand is folks who defend them and haven't updated their takes on all this to reflect the realities of modern Apple under Tim Cook

Other than the name and the marketing -- the company bears very little resemblance to the one so many of us used to love

It's been fully "Wall Street'd" and "Ops-Guy'd"
i.e. Fully Tim "Cooked"

Unless you're a shareholder he's the worst thing to happen to Apple since Emilio

 

[slomtbr]

iTunes Match is still alive and kicking and the cost is quite reasonable imo at $25 per year.

I don't want Apple replacing songs in my library.

 

[spazzcat]

This is just how Tim Cook operates these days...Less on customer experience, more on bottom-line.

Either way, it's a bad look for the 5GB free iCloud storage. They obviously thought the 5GB was sufficient in 2012 - with everything growing over the past 12 years (file sizes and what we store), this should have at least increased.

And also, I don't care if it's one penny a month - why nickle & dime customers? Just a bad experience.

Do the math on a few 100 millon accounts.

 

[spazzcat]

Im a millennial. Had an iPhone 11 pro max with 50GB plan. Traded it in for a galaxy 24. Went online after I had forgot I still had cloud purchased after I received an email and was like oh no! Went to cancel membership and Apple in true fashion was like you can only unsubscribe if you 1 use a computer with iTunes or 2 use an iPhone iPad or Mac. Long story short all I have is a galaxy that's it. So I was being charged every month a dollar for a plan and services I no longer needed becaus apple. I decided to erase my account and loose all my purchases everything than deal with this. Insanity. Be careful not everyone has a computer nor wants one. (also I re read this and it sounds fake. Only with apple can someone read another's story and be like wtf? And it sound fake. Trust me it's true) You can't downgrade icloud on an android phone. Look it up.

Did you call or contact support?

 

[Chungry]

Do the math on a few 100 millon accounts.

Peanuts given their market cap and the potential good will. Side effects would include further platform lock-in

 

[spazzcat]

Fighting this lawsuit probably costed more than just raising the free storage tier

The flip side is $24 year is way cheaper then paying for lawyers to fight a losing case.

 

[magicvash]

It's a bad look for a trillion dollar company but then again these are the same folks who waited until 2024 and their AI offering to finally admit that 8 GB just wasn't enough RAM anymore.

Yes $12/year is nothing compared to all the other stuff you purchase throughout the year, but I also agree with the question of why should we even have to do this. At the very least, if they want to tout their backup feature, it should be 5 GB base + a nominal amount per device you own (e.g. 1-5 GB per device or something). If you have an iPad, iPhone, and a Mac, that should get you somewhere in the 8-20 GB range which is much more reasonable, and you can actually back up photos, data, etc... without bumping up to the next plan.

Finally, they could just avoid all of this by allowing you to use Dropbox, OneDrive, or whatever cloud storage you want as your backup destination.

 

[jjwwqq]

This reminds me - I need to figure out a network attached storage system that will allow me to entirely bypass any paid cloud storage system.

 

[bergert]

I'm ok with paying for my 2TB plan, but I'd very much like to sync my Music folder without an Apple Music subscription.

Why don't you use Music Match ($24.99/yr) vs 2TB (129/yr)?

Subscribe to iTunes Match - Apple Support

iTunes Match gives you access to all of your music on all of your devices, even songs that you've imported from other sources such as CDs.

support.apple.com

I use match to stream to my 4 HomePods and to my iPhone in my car from a MacMini (with external RAID disk). And the Mini does not even need to be turned on ...