Most of my iCloud is occupied by WhatsApp backup, iPhone backup, iCloud email, iCloud Drive, Voice Memos, Notes, Messages, Books, and third-party apps like Over. To better under what is taking up your iCloud space, tap Manage Storage.Īs you can see in these screenshots, I’m on the free 5 GB plan. You can find out how much free space you have on iCloud by going to the Settings app > your name from the top > iCloud. When your iCloud space is about to fill up, you’ll be constantly reminded via popups saying Not Enough Storage, iCloud Storage Full, Upgrade Storage, etc. You store lots of PDFs, documents, Excel sheets, and such in iCloud Drive.

Third-party apps like WhatsApp are backing up tons of data to your iCloud.Your iCloud Notes have lots of media like sketches, images, etc.You send and receive several emails with attachments using iCloud email ( You’re backing up all files on your Mac’s desktop and documents folders to iCloud Drive.You have thousands of messages with attachments.Images and videos are backed-up to iCloud Photos.The main reasons your iCloud storage may be filled up are: In that case, you can free up iCloud space to keep syncing and storing new content.

Once your iCloud storage is full, you have the option to buy more. In most cases, this isn’t enough, and due to Apple’s practices (like enabling iCloud Photos and Mac Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud Drive by default), you will fill it up in a few days or weeks. You get 5 GB of free iCloud space when you create an Apple ID. It also offers storage options for your photos, videos, files, device backups, third-party app data, and more.

ICloud is Apple’s online service responsible for wirelessly syncing your data across your various Apple devices and the web.

How to backup mac to icloud drive