Why use iCloud?

There are many iCloud services - for example for storing photos in iCloud Photos see: Three Good Reasons for Using iCloud Photos Library and when not to use it - Apple Community

iCloud is particularly useful, if you own several Apple devices and want to keep your documents and data in sync across all your devices. iCloud has been designed to ensure, that you are seeing the same documents and data on all devices, and when you are working with one of the applications, like Calendar, Notes, etc, anything you change on one of your devices will be updated in iCloud and from there to all other devices. This is working well, even if you are running different system versions on all devices.

A second benefit of iCloud is the off-site storage. If a device is lost or damaged, or stolen, you can recover the current state of your documents and data from iCloud.

You can also save some storage locally on your devices, if you are using the ""optimise storage" option on the device. photos or iCloud Drive can save storage locally by removing larger files from the the vice, of you need to free storage. But iCloud will try to keep as many of the recently used files stored locally as feasible, so you do not have to download the same files over and over again. This is fully automatic and you should not have to worry about the available storage. You cannot control, which files will get "Optimised" and which files will be kept downloaded.

What iCloud is not, is a backup. Even with iCloud enabled you will have to keep regular backups of your devices. And iCloud is not an independent external storage. Because of the syncing, the files in iCloud are your working set - you are seeing and handling the local copies on the device you are currently using, but actually you are modifying the files in iCloud and the changes are instantly propagated to all devices and all copies on all devices will be identical. essentially, there is the master of a file in iCloud, and many shadow copies on all your iCloud devices.

Why iCloud is used as when iCloud Drive and desktops and documents box is turned on https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mchle5a61431/10.14/mac/10.14, so whenever new files / personal documents are created / added they automatically gets save in them also when inbuilt apple applications are turned on their data also sync .

In case if Macintosh hard drive is erased and new os is installed , the iCloud data is still saved on the server , the user can use same Apple ID and password and same credentials to sign in the data will always sync ( make sure the iCloud data should be in purchased storage limits ) .

Regarding local storage when users drag and drop those files / personal documents to other locations or in home folder https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mchl1a02d711/macif their size is massive the Macintosh hard drive space will increase , say if memory is 4gb and lot of documents are loaded it will exceed this space .

So , if third party apps / softwares are installed , click on finder > applications right click on them and delete to Mac trash , restart the Mac and empty the trash .

The best way is always use a time machine back up .

Note : and pay for it +network) - some users have less usage they always use free 5GB , however to sync iCloud data high network speed will boost up to sync files / personal documents , notes , photos , mails .....etc .

The iCloud storage should be always checked , if it is exceeded always archive the data , in case if you forgot it , new iCloud data won't be saved , so you have to purchase higher plan , the previous data with old plan will stay .

erichirit wrote:

The question was not Why to use iCloud. It was why to use iCloud vs. alternatives i.e. local HD.

And leonie did point out why you might want to do that:

iCloud is particularly useful, if you own several Apple devices and want to keep your documents and data in sync across all your devices. iCloud has been designed to ensure, that you are seeing the same documents and data on all devices, and when you are working with one of the applications, like Calendar, Notes, etc, anything you change on one of your devices will be updated in iCloud and from there to all other devices. This is working well, even if you are running different system versions on all devices.

A second benefit of iCloud is the off-site storage. If a device is lost or damaged, or stolen, you can recover the current state of your documents and data from iCloud.

But, in case it was unclear, let me give you some examples. I use iCloud to store a lot of documents I use on my home Mac and my work Windows computer. All I have to do at work is log into iCloud and I have all of my documents from my home computer. Yes, I suppose I could store the documents on an external hard drive and carry that back and forth to work but this is so much easier. The documents are all in sync and, on the Mac side, it's just as if I was saving them locally.

Restoring a damaged/lost phone from iCloud is often easier than restoring it from a backup on a hard drive. I smashed the screen of my phone and took it to Apple for replacement. They handed me the replacement, I logged in and, within minutes, I had access to most of my information (some of it took a while longer to download). I didn't have to go home and plug it into a computer.

But, really it comes down to personal preference and situation. If you want to carry a hard drive or flash drive around, that's what you should do. If you need to access documents where there is no internet access, it also might make sense.

erichirit wrote:

How about costs! And dependency on network apple isp all devices needed to have access to iCloud? And, what happens when the allocation of iCloud is exhausted?

If you don't want to use iCloud, don't. No one is forcing you to. No one here in this user-to-user forum has any vested interest in trying to convince you to use it. You've been given reasons why someone might want to use it. If they don't apply to you, that's fine. Do whatever works for you.

If you have further technical questions about how iCloud works and how it might be useful, I'll do my best to answer them. However, I've no interest in some sort of philosophical argument over whether or not it's better or worse than using a hard drive.