I am basically an Apple user, but there are times when I might want to work on one of my files using a Windows app, so I gave over part of one of my computers to a Boot Camp partition with Windows 10. My files are on iCloud. So it's great that Apple/Microsoft have an iCloud app isn't it?
Well, it would be if it worked. I downloaded and installed it OK, but then nothing happened. The document file just showed as 'folder empty'. Two calls to Apple and 48 hours later, I learned that if you click the iCloud icon on the toolbar a little pop-up appears, which said it was 'initialising' and showed an increasing count of 'items' being initialised. It doesn't say what an item is, how many there are or how long it is going to take to initialise the rest. According to MacOS, my iCloud has 11,000 items; but this Microsoft counter went up to over 200,000 - then went to zero and did it again.
After about 4 days I found a few folders had finally appeared in my iCloud drive. They were all empty but that's a start isn't it? I observed that the little popup on the toolbar no longer says 'initialising items' but 'uploading' or 'downloading' a number of items (typically 30-100). Why it is uploading anyhing at all is a mystery as I have not yet put anything in the Windows iCloud folder.
After a week, in a third call to Apple Support, the operator told me straight away that iCloud for Windows is unable to sync an iCloud drive that is bigger than the available disk space at the time of initialisation. It can, he said, only deal with this situation if you start with a small disk and gradually increase it! He could not explain why iCloud for Windows is so poorly designed that (a) this is the case and (b) it does not detect the problem before it even tries to start syncing.
Theoretically, it should work if I start a new iCloud account, synchronise to Windows, and then migrate my 1.1 Tb of files gradually across. This is not easy to do because you cannot have two iCloud accounts open on one computer at the same time; you would have to migrate the files to somewhere else first then bring them back. Apart from the bother, this is a deal-breaker for me - it rules out iCloud for Windows as an option because even if I went to this trouble, I would never be able to get it working on a new computer other than by repeating the exercise. A key reason for keeping everything in a cloud is that I can add or replace computers at will. It was precisely for the capability of iCloud to keep a cloud bigger than the available local disk space that I chose it in the first place. I have a 2Tb cloud subscription and am currently using over 1Tb, but I only have one computer that can keep a complete copy, and that will run out of space soon. It works fine on two Laptops with less than 500Gb each running MacOS. All I wanted was the same under Windows. No deal!
You can of course download / upload files by hand by going to icloud.com in a browser. I am also able to sync files with OneDrive (using OneDrive for Mac) or with sync.com, but in both cases I have started with an empty drive, so cannot confirm if they still work when the cloud size exceeds the physical disk size. I do not like OneDrive much because it enforces more restrictive filenames than Mac, so you have to keep renaming files. Any bulk migration is therefore out of the question.
It would have saved me a lot of time if Apple had mentioned the limitations of iCloud for Windows in the documentation before I downloaded it. I hope I have saved you time by mentioning it here!
If anyone knows of a solution that (a) definitely works with MacOS and Windows, (b) can hold a cloud of 2TB for a reasonable price (c) can sync with all computers of any size (say 50Gb upwards) and (d) accepts all MacOS filenames, then I would like to hear about it! When I chose iCloud, it was the only solution to meet these criteria, but that was a couple of years ago: perhaps others are offering it now?
Well, it would be if it worked. I downloaded and installed it OK, but then nothing happened. The document file just showed as 'folder empty'. Two calls to Apple and 48 hours later, I learned that if you click the iCloud icon on the toolbar a little pop-up appears, which said it was 'initialising' and showed an increasing count of 'items' being initialised. It doesn't say what an item is, how many there are or how long it is going to take to initialise the rest. According to MacOS, my iCloud has 11,000 items; but this Microsoft counter went up to over 200,000 - then went to zero and did it again.
After about 4 days I found a few folders had finally appeared in my iCloud drive. They were all empty but that's a start isn't it? I observed that the little popup on the toolbar no longer says 'initialising items' but 'uploading' or 'downloading' a number of items (typically 30-100). Why it is uploading anyhing at all is a mystery as I have not yet put anything in the Windows iCloud folder.
After a week, in a third call to Apple Support, the operator told me straight away that iCloud for Windows is unable to sync an iCloud drive that is bigger than the available disk space at the time of initialisation. It can, he said, only deal with this situation if you start with a small disk and gradually increase it! He could not explain why iCloud for Windows is so poorly designed that (a) this is the case and (b) it does not detect the problem before it even tries to start syncing.
Theoretically, it should work if I start a new iCloud account, synchronise to Windows, and then migrate my 1.1 Tb of files gradually across. This is not easy to do because you cannot have two iCloud accounts open on one computer at the same time; you would have to migrate the files to somewhere else first then bring them back. Apart from the bother, this is a deal-breaker for me - it rules out iCloud for Windows as an option because even if I went to this trouble, I would never be able to get it working on a new computer other than by repeating the exercise. A key reason for keeping everything in a cloud is that I can add or replace computers at will. It was precisely for the capability of iCloud to keep a cloud bigger than the available local disk space that I chose it in the first place. I have a 2Tb cloud subscription and am currently using over 1Tb, but I only have one computer that can keep a complete copy, and that will run out of space soon. It works fine on two Laptops with less than 500Gb each running MacOS. All I wanted was the same under Windows. No deal!
You can of course download / upload files by hand by going to icloud.com in a browser. I am also able to sync files with OneDrive (using OneDrive for Mac) or with sync.com, but in both cases I have started with an empty drive, so cannot confirm if they still work when the cloud size exceeds the physical disk size. I do not like OneDrive much because it enforces more restrictive filenames than Mac, so you have to keep renaming files. Any bulk migration is therefore out of the question.
It would have saved me a lot of time if Apple had mentioned the limitations of iCloud for Windows in the documentation before I downloaded it. I hope I have saved you time by mentioning it here!
If anyone knows of a solution that (a) definitely works with MacOS and Windows, (b) can hold a cloud of 2TB for a reasonable price (c) can sync with all computers of any size (say 50Gb upwards) and (d) accepts all MacOS filenames, then I would like to hear about it! When I chose iCloud, it was the only solution to meet these criteria, but that was a couple of years ago: perhaps others are offering it now?
