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iCloud Account

Your iCloud account is going to be the most important account you have with Apple.

You will use it for everything from buying music and movies in iTunes, to buying Apps to keep on top of your health and fitness (and if this sounds of interest, check out our article on our favourite health and fitness apps).

With all things Apple, iCloud is becoming a centrepiece for syncing all your content.

Between iCloud and iCloud Drive, everything you need to keep on top of will be kept in it’s rightful place.

Some of the most important bits and pieces for doing this include ‘Find My iPhone’, ‘Find My Mac’ and ‘Find My iPad’ – which come in handy when you have misplaced it as much as they do when someone has actually stolen your device.

There are loads of articles naming and shaming thieves who have accidentally taken pictures of themselves, which have been shared with the owner’s  iCloud account, making prosecution that much easier.

Our website is basically set up to show you everything you may need to know with respect to using your iCloud account, so there are a number of resources that you should check out.

Create an iCloud Account

If you don’t already have an iCloud account to attach to your device, you can go to the main iCloud page here.

Instead of logging in, look to the bottom of the screen, where it says “Don’t have an Apple ID? and click on ‘Create one now.’

But be sure to check out our iCloud Password page to make sure you choose a secure password and that you remember to keep it somewhere very safe, as you will need it for everything, and it is much easier not to have to reset your iCloud account.

 

iCloud Account page - iCloud Account

 

1. If you want to create an iCloud account on your device, go into Settings>General Software update and make sure you’re running the latest version of iOS.

Go to Settings again>iCloud>Enter your Apple ID

2. If you want to set up an iCloud account on your Mac, all you have to do is essentially the same as above – you need to first make sure you’re running the most up to date version of OS X. To do this, go to the apple menu and Software Update.

Go to System Preferences>iCloud and enter your Apple ID

3. If you want to set up an iCloud account using a Windows PC, this is possible too. You first need to download iCloud for Windows.

Open iCloud for Windows and Enter your Apple ID. Choose the iCloud services you want to enable for your device (all of them are great) then select Apply.

Know How to Set it Up

This is a key point in our free e-book. Knowing how to set up your iCloud account and how to login to iCloud is a pretty good place to start.

We’ll give you the basics in this post, but if you find yourself struggling, do check out our iCloud Login page for more info.

Here’s a great video from Lifehacker on how to get started with iCloud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzvvmAjSl6c

How to Manage My iCloud Account

You can manage your iCloud account, that is, you can switch on and off the different apps, and choose which programmes are being saved, backed up and synced to iCloud by going to Settings on your device, iCloud and then switch on and off the programmes and apps you choose from there.

The Difference Between iCloud and iCloud Drive

As Apple continues to improve the communication between iCloud and iCloud Drive, it may become less necessary to know the difference, but just to clear things up, iCloud was set up to let you sync music, movies, photos and other things like bookmarks, but essentially wasn’t set up for backing up EVERYTHING.

That is the most obvious difference between the two. iCloud Drive is set up as a kind of portable hard-drive which can be synced in real time as long as you’re connected to the internet.