iCloud Is iCloud Drive really this poor or am I missing something?

[PDE]

My family recently switched to using iCloud Drive for all our family files and Apple notes for my partner and I to use for everyday note sharing and to do lists, etc. I’ve used a variety of file sharing services, including Dropbox and Sync, and find apple‘s unreliable, slow and often not functional. I can’t rely on it to sync quickly. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it’s immediate. The other day I tried to turn off sync on one of my computers, then switch on again. It started downloading From the cloud, but then just stopped for no apparent reason. Today I wrote a quick note on my work computer about 15 minutes before i logged out. When I came home the note hadn‘t uploaded and so I had to start over again with what I had done.

is it really this bad and slow, or are there things I could to reset the syncing? Any tips would be greatly appreciated before I give up and go back to Sync.com. I don’t even know where to begin troubleshooting.

Thanks

Peter

 

[AlixSPQR]

I can’t rely on it to sync quickly. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it’s immediate.

Yes, that’s my experience also.

 

[Eric Idle]

Yes, it is really that bad. Thank Tim Cook for trashing Apple.

iCloud is utterly worthless. Drop Box ALL the way.

 

[iqmac]

Yup I have found iCloud to be less and less reliable, sometimes taking hours to sync. I have resorted to SIGKILL'ing the iCloud process on my Macs to force it to sync whenever I find that the sync isn't happening.../usr/bin/pkill -9 bird

 

[icanhazmac]

While I don't have many issues, my only real complaint would be the lack of a "sync now" button. Occasionally I find myself waiting for pictures to sync to my Mac from my iPhone, it never takes too long but when you need it fast you need it fast.

 

[PDE]

Thanks everyone for the comments. I've now almost given up. It just doesn't sync reliably enough for us to be able to use it as our main online storage. It also seems to get stuck with both uploads and downloads. I've tried to reset by turning off sync and then back on, but it still slows to a crawl. I also tried Iqmac's command above, but it doesn't seem to fix the issue long-term.When I add something new, it's as though it cannot upload until it finished syncing, which seems to never complete and so it doesn't upload. What a mess.

I was thinking that maybe we have too much data, but we're only using a small portion of what is available so I'd expect it not to be a problem.

Anyway...it is what it is: very disappointing.

 

[Jim Lahey]

iCloud in general has a mind of its own. Made worse by there being absolutely no option anywhere in any user interface to force a refresh. Yes, it's rubbish. Stopped using almost all of it a long time ago. Local storage is old school FTW

 

[Eric Idle]

iCloud is an unmitigated disaster. Yet one more area where Apple completely dropped the ball.

 

[Hollydays]

Not refuting anyone's complaints here though I have had no issues with iCloud whatsoever, and I find it a lot simpler, easier and more transparent than OneDrive, for example. My files are sync'd immediately.
HOWEVER... I have only a tiny amount of personal file storage needs except for photos and for that I agree the syncing could be faster or there should be some sort of quick manual refresh.
Meanwhile, my husband is about to purchase his first MacBook Pro and we will ensure he's got plenty of physical storage besides our cloud storage because his business file needs are cricital. (He also uses all Microsoft programs which only AutoSave to OneDrive which he doesn't/won't use.)
Could the problem others' are expressing have to do with amount of memory available?

 

[Morac]

I’ve never had issues with iCloud Drive syncing between my Mac, iPad and iPhone. It works so well it’s almost like magic. Uploaded changes are near instantaneous. Downloading occurs when I go to access a file if it’s large enough or immediately upon going to the folder for small files.

I would blame network issues for people having problems with it.

 

[Hollydays]

I’ve never had issues with iCloud Drive syncing between my Mac, iPad and iPhone. It works so well it’s almost like magic. Uploaded changes are near instantaneous. Downloading occurs when I go to access a file if it’s large enough or immediately upon going to the folder for small files.

I would blame network issues for people having problems with it.

I too was thinking maybe network or internet service issues, as well as possible RAM issues. Whenever I've had any slowness, which has been very rare, it's been either our service was "on the blink" or I was glutting the memory trying to move too many photos at once. But, some folks here, many likely being well more experienced than I, do seem to have real concerns and I hope they will elaborate on the trouble they've experienced.

 

[PDE]

I’ve never had issues with iCloud Drive syncing between my Mac, iPad and iPhone. It works so well it’s almost like magic. Uploaded changes are near instantaneous. Downloading occurs when I go to access a file if it’s large enough or immediately upon going to the folder for small files.

I would blame network issues for people having problems with it.

I wish it were a network issue, but my networks work perfectly for all other services -- I have 250mbps download and 25mbps upload and I have used online storage systems for a very long time (Crashplan originally, Dropbox, Sync, OneDrive, ZohoDrive, to name a few) and they have generally worked smoothly with few to no issues syncing.

I use iCloud to sync data from several apps and that seems to work well, but not this.

 

[NJRonbo]

Came here after finding this through a forum search

I have been experiencing sync issues with iCloud across three computers

I have created a folder within iCloud to share files across my network

Items I have dropped in that folder often take hours to days to appear on the other computers. And, in some cases, don't appear at all.

I never expected iCloud to be this unreliable. Thought it was an issue on my end, but looking through these replies it's apparent that is not the case.

 

[PDE]

I stopped using it for general file storage for my family because of issues described, but it seems to hold up for app syncing. I use it for 2-3 apps they rely on iCloud for syncing and by and large it’s quick and works well. It’s a shame that apple has not managed to make this work perfectly and seamlessly. Embarrassing for them after all these years of trying. Or maybe they never really tried?

 

[deejinoz]

My family recently switched to using iCloud Drive for all our family files and Apple notes for my partner and I to use for everyday note sharing and to do lists, etc. I’ve used a variety of file sharing services, including Dropbox and Sync, and find apple‘s unreliable, slow and often not functional. I can’t rely on it to sync quickly. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it’s immediate. The other day I tried to turn off sync on one of my computers, then switch on again. It started downloading From the cloud, but then just stopped for no apparent reason. Today I wrote a quick note on my work computer about 15 minutes before i logged out. When I came home the note hadn‘t uploaded and so I had to start over again with what I had done.

is it really this bad and slow, or are there things I could to reset the syncing? Any tips would be greatly appreciated before I give up and go back to Sync.com. I don’t even know where to begin troubleshooting.

Thanks

Peter

I've supported multiple clients, both home and business users, for all four of the biggest cloud file storage/sync providers (Apple, DropBox, Google and Microsoft) and Apple's quality of service is definitely the worst. All of the technologies have their quirks and user interface design/logic challenges but Apple's is the simplest. However, whilst being the easiest to use, the lack of transparency and control of file/photo synchronisation makes it the worst product of the four to use. If you can't rely on it to synchronise files within a reasonable timeframe it makes it only a liability.

As long as Apple view iCloud as a least cost to service provision model it will never be taken seriously and will never work sensibly. Apple owns very little of its own cloud systems, outsourcing most of their cloud infrastructure to Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Oh the irony!